The Influencer Marketing Trade Body (IMTB) has been appointed as a member of the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP).
The IMTB is a professional membership organisation dedicated to building a ‘robust’, sustainable future for the influencer marketing industry through increased accountability, governance and a ‘unified voice’.
The body will represent influencer marketing on CAP, an organisation responsible for writing and updating the rules on advertising in the UK through the CAP (Non-broadcast Advertising) code. CAP is the sister organisation of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) – the UK’s independent advertising regulator that administers the CAP Code to keep ads legal. The CAP executive also provides the advertising industry with guidance on complying with the code.
“IMTB is the first new CAP member in over a decade,” IMTB director general Scott Guthrie said. “Joining CAP is a significant milestone both for the IMTB and for influencer marketing as a whole. IMTB will now provide direct representation of the influencer marketing sector to the committee.
“Better regulation and enforcement of that regulation leads to better trust, relevance, responsibility and effectiveness, for IMTB members and the industry as a whole. Together we aim to encourage greater professionalism and alignment with the regulatory system.”
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CAP director Shahriar Coupal added: “Influencers increasingly represent a significant part of the advertising ecosystem and ensuring they understand how and when the ad rules apply to them is a focus of the ASA’s work. We are therefore delighted to appoint IMTB as a member of CAP. We have been impressed by IMTB’s depth of subject matter expertise and look forward to their committee contributions.
“Complaints about influencer posts constitute almost a quarter of online cases brought to the ASA each year. CAP is committed to encouraging and securing responsible influencer marketing which is increasingly aligned with the regulatory system.”
Launched in October 2021 with six founding members, the IMTB now has 15 member organisations including BENlabs, THE FIFTH, Fourth Floor, Good Relations, impact.com, INCA, R&CPMK, Ketchum, Ogilvy, SEEN Connects, Storm, Tagger, TAKUMI, Whalar and What They Said.
IMTB director general Scott Guthrie recently told Marketing Beat in an exclusive interview that “we’ll see more and more creators, brands and agencies come into the space [influencing], but we’ll also see a lot more regulation.
“Hopefully this will involve self-regulators like the ASA, as opposed to experiencing government sanctions from organisations like the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for example.”
