Influencer ads account for 20% of advertising complaints

Ellen O'Donoghue

Social media influencer advertisements accounted for 20 per cent of all complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in 2023.

Of the 279 complaints made pertaining to advertisements made by social media influencers, 34 per cent were received after the launch of the joint guidance on influencer marketing with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) in October 2023.

The number of complaints about influencer marketing has increased from 7 per cent in 2022 and 5 per cent in 2021.

The ASA received 1,402 complaints, concerning 1,134 advertisements last year, according to their annual report, an increase of 18 per cent compared to 2022 (1,189).

They found that 59 advertisements were in breach of the ASA’s code of standards for advertising and marketing communications in 2023.

The report also outlines that 68 per cent of complaints made last year were on the basis that an advertisement was misleading, while 8 per cent were made on the basis that an advertisement was offensive.

The ASA introduced an anonymous social media influencer content complaints reporting form along with a reach out programme to engage with influencers where multiple ad contents were received by the organisation.

From the introduction of the report form in November 2023, 903 notifications were received about content by some 300 social media influencers to year-end.

Of the 903 notifications received through the anonymous reporting form, 590 notifications referenced a missing label or hashtag, 171 referenced that the label or hashtag was not visible, or not at the start of the content, and 142 referenced that the incorrect label or hashtag was used.

The health and beauty sector received the second-greatest number of complaints with 221, followed by the leisure (153) and household (111) sectors.

Digital media had the highest number of complaints with 60 per cent of the complaints by media made to that sector, while broadcasting media, TV and radio combined, totalled 26 per cent, and outdoor media amounted to four per cent.

Chief executive of the ASA, Orla Twomey said that this year had seen the emergence of new statutory entities and important partners to the ASA in the co-regulatory landscape and the development of new key guidance.