Entrepreneur and influencer Grace Beverley has has a series of social media posts banned by The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for failing to properly disclose that they were marketing material.
The six ads see Beverley promoting various items of clothing for her We Are Tala brand, posted as both Instagram and TikTok videos via her personal social media accounts. In none of the clips does Beverley make it clear that the content is promotional, breaching ad signposting guidelines across both social media platforms.
As a founder and owner of the We Are Tala brand, Beverley has a direct commercial relationship with the products being promoted and is required to disclose this by the non-broadcast CAP code.
In total, 51 complainants challenged whether the posts were obviously identifiable as marketing communications.
Responding to the ruling, We Are Tala said it: “believed there was a deliberate and clear use of language in all the ads which indicated there was a commercial relationship between Tala and Ms Beverley, and more specifically, that Tala was her own business”.
The brand said it believed the majority of Beverley’s followers would have known that she owned the brand, and – given that context – the use of a disclaimer should not have been mandatory for all marketing communications promoting We Are Tala on her personal social media pages.
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We Are Tala also said that it believed including a disclaimer would itself have made the ads misleading.
The fashion brand said a disclaimer would have “led consumers to think that rather than being the founder or owner of the Tala business, Ms Beverley was an arm’s length influencer who had no commercial interest in the business, and was merely promoting goods because she was being paid to do so.”
It also drew attention to the fact that Beverley’s involvement with We Are Tala as a founder and owner is clearly known and displayed on all her social media bios.
Upholding the complaints, a spokesperson for the regulator said: “The social media posts made by Grace Beverley in her capacity as an employee of the brand, which were directly connected with Tala’s products, constituted marketing communications in non-paid-for space, under the control of Tala.”
It went on to say this meant “both parties were responsible for ensuring the posts complied with the CAP Code”.
The adverts must not appear again in the form complained of.
We Are Tala and Grace Beverley were told to ensure future ads were obviously identifiable as such, with identifiers such as #ad being “clearly and prominently displayed”.
