Former professional footballers Matt Le Tissier and John Hartson broke UK advertising rules after they promoted a CBD product on X without revealing that they had been paid for it.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigated numerous complaints about a series of posts on social media platform X, in which both men promoted ‘Supreme CBD’, a retailer set up by retired boxer Anthony Fowler.
Across two tweets, former Supreme CBD brand ambassador Hartson told his 400,000 followers that the product helped him “sleep so much better with less anxiety” and that it was “magic”.
Similarly, Southampton legend and current brand ambassador Le Tissier told his 650,000 followers that despite initially being sceptical of Supreme CBD, he found it to be “a game changer for people with anxiety and depression or any aches and pain or insomnia”.
The posts were investigated by the ASA after X users pointed out that Hartson and Le Tissier’s promotional content did not contain any disclaimers indicating that the posts were sponsored, despite both men’s clear links to Fowler’s company.
The posts also contained discount codes for users interested in purchasing Supreme CBD’s products.
More seriously, Hartson and Le Tissier fell foul of the UK’s marketing code for claiming that Supreme CBD could “prevent, treat or cure disease”, specifically disorders associated with anxiety and depression.
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Hartson told the ASA that having been a personal user of Supreme CBD, he then entered into a verbal agreement with the brand whereupon he would receive a “small amount of commission” from the use of his discount codes, as well as free products.
He has since amended the tweets and ended his relationship with Supreme CBD.
The company admitted that Le Tissier also received commission from the use of his discount codes.
The former England striker said that he was unaware that speaking about the health benefits of CBD would be in breach of the UK marketing code and said that he would no longer mention the product’s supposed health benefits. The banned post does however remained pinned to the top of his X profile.
In statement, the ASA said: “The ASA understood that there was a financial agreement in place between Supreme CBD and both Mr Hartson and Mr Le Tissier, and that they both received commission for sales generated from the use of their personalised codes by consumers.
“Those personalised codes were therefore directly connected with the supply of goods provided by Supreme CBD, and because of that [the] posts were considered ads.”
It added: “We told Supreme CBD, Anthony Fowler, John Hartson and Matt Le Tissier to ensure their future ads were obviously identifiable as marketing communications. We also told them to ensure their future ads did not state or imply that the products could prevent, treat or cure human disease.”
