I don’t actually watch Love Island, but I do keep track of the rulings made by the Advertising Standards Agency. So when I saw that someone called Olivia Buckland had got into trouble with them, I hadn’t actually heard of her.
The ASA’s issue was a simple one. Ms Buckland had posted about her tanning product – Marrissa Carter’s Cocoa Brown mousse – on Instagram without revealing that she is paid by the company to promote their brand. She does have the hashtag #BrandAmbassador in her bio. But if you came across the post without reading the bio you wouldn’t realise it was a paid for puff rather than a truthful testimonial.
All she had to do to become compliant was put the hashtag #Ad in the post and she would have been okay. I assume that’s what she’ll do from now on.
It’s a good reminder to us all that there are plenty of people out there who are only too happy to do things that are a bit misleading to turn a coin. A good example being the coverage of this frankly not especially interesting story in the press. As I didn’t know who she was I googled her, to discover that journalists certainly do. The Evening Standard headline read “Love Island star Olivia Buckland’s racy Instagram post banned by advertising regulator”, which is strictly speaking true but doesn’t really reflect what actually happened. But it did give them a chance to post a pic of the photogenic star.
Everyone’s at it. I’ll be mentioning that I offer a pack copy checking service and advice about cosmetic product claims next.
https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/love-island-star-olivia-bucklands-racy-instagram-post-banned-by-advertising-regulator-a4207181.html