Ad description
Ads posted by Lorna Luxe on Instagram for her collection for In The Style Fashion seen in November and December 2021:
a. Instagram Stories that showed photos and videos of Lorna Luxe wearing and talking about the clothes.
b. Saved Story highlights on Lorna Luxe’s Instagram profile page titled “New Collection”. The Stories featured the same content as ad (a). Her Instagram bio at the top of her profile page included the text “My @inthestyle collection is live” and a link to www.inthestyle.com/lorna-luxe.
Issue
The complainants challenged whether the ads were obviously identifiable as marketing communications.Response
Lorna Luxe and In The Style Fashion Ltd (In The Style) said that they would take care to ensure that future advertising was clearly labelled as such. Lorna Luxe said that she had deleted the Story highlights, but she was confident that her followers and fans were aware that the Stories were marketing communications.Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such and must make clear their commercial intent if that was not obvious from the context. The ASA understood that Lorna Luxe collaborated on, and gave her name to, a range of clothing for In The Style and that there was therefore a commercial relationship between them. The Instagram Stories (ads (a) and (b)) promoted Lorna Luxe products for In The Style and were therefore directly connected to the supply of goods. The Stories were therefore ads for the purposes of the Code.
We first considered whether ad (a) was identifiable as a marketing communication. Ad (a) showed various items of clothing, either on hangers or worn by Lorna Luxe and included details about fabric and sizing. Some included written captions including “…my new collection”, “can’t wait to start shooting properly tomorrow … will do some videos so you can see the movement”, “launching a couple of occasion dresses”, “launching Luxe occasion on 15 Nov” and “gonna wear my new collection tonight”. We noted that ad (a) did not refer to or tag In The Style. Although some of Lorna Luxe’s followers might have known about her commercial relationship with In The Style, we considered that those phrases were insufficient to ensure that the Stories were obviously identifiable as ads and in the absence of a clear and prominent identifier, such as “#ad”, the content of the Stories did not make clear their commercial intent.
We understood that Stories saved to Instagram Story Highlights, such as ad (b), could only be viewed on Lorna Luxe’s Instagram profile page. Lorna Luxe’s Instagram bio included a link to www.inthestyle.com/lorna-luxe and stated “My @inthestyle collection is live”, with a finger-pointing emoji pointing towards the Story Highlights on the profile page. Ad (b) was captioned “New Collection” which we understood was intended to refer to the clothing collection Lorna Luxe had worked on for In The Style. We acknowledged that the information in the bio on the profile page might suggest to some consumers that there was a commercial relationship between Lorna Luxe and In The Style and that ad (b) could not be seen without first visiting the profile page. We considered, however, that information contained in a profile bio did not amount to sufficient disclosure. Moreover, we noted neither the name of the Story Highlights, “New Collection”, nor the individual Stories within the highlights (namely ad (a)), contained an adequate disclosure label such as “#ad”.
Because consumers needed to be aware that they were viewing marketing content, we concluded that neither ads (a) nor (b) were obviously identifiable as marketing communications.
The ads breached rules 2.1 2.1 Marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such. and 2.4 2.4 Marketers and publishers must make clear that advertorials are marketing communications; for example, by heading them "advertisement feature". of the Code (Recognition of marketing communication).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Lorna Luxe and In The Style Fashion Ltd to ensure that future Stories and Story Highlights were obviously identifiable as marketing communications, for example by including a clear and prominent identifier, such as “#ad” on the Story or on the profile page before users clicked on a Story Highlight.
