The UK Advertising Standards Authority Has Banned Influencers From Using Filters While Promoting Products
BBC has bad news for the beauty influencer community of the UK. I know, when will beautiful rich people STOP BEING TARGETS?! The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority decided to lay down some rules after Instagram influencers used filters to darken and smooth out their skin in ads for tanning products. ASA ruled that filters are “misleading” and that from here on out, influencers can’t use them when pushing products. Aubrey O’Day is shook!
This was started by 29-year-old, Sasha Pallari, who launched the #filterdrop campaign in July last year. She wanted to see “more real skin” on Instagram.
The UK already has a lot of rules about Photoshop in advertising, and eventually, the campaign caught the attention of Members of Parliament, and ASA got involved, debating over two specific tanning ads from Skinny Tan Ltd. and Tanologist Tan. The original posts were from influencers, Cinzia Baylis-Zullo and Elly Norris, and while the brands only used user-generated content to promote themselves, the ASA ruled that applying a filter “misleadingly exaggerated the effect the product was capable of achieving,” and decided that both cases were likely to have misled consumers.
It said the ruling means that brands, influencers and celebrities should not apply filters to photos that promote beauty products if the filters are likely to exaggerate the effect the products are capable of achieving.
The ASA said that filtered beauty content could still be misleading, even if the name of the filter was referenced in the Instagram story.
Ads that break these rules would be taken down and prohibited from appearing again, which was likely to damage the advertiser and influencer’s reputation, the ASA said.
A spokesman said: “An ongoing focus of our work in this area continues to be on raising awareness of the rules and supporting influencers with the guidance and tools they need to help get their ads right.
“We’re also working closely with the social media platforms who can and will enforce our rulings where an advertiser is unwilling or able to work with us.”
Sasha was “over the moon” at the decision and said:
“I feel like the detrimental effect this is having on social media users has finally been taken seriously and this is a huge step in the right direction for how filters are used and the way cosmetics are advertised online.”
How they’re going to crack down on this is beyond me. But just like that, every potential UK-brand opportunity for the Koven just went up in smoke. Hard on Photoshop and no filters? Kylie Cosmetics ads in the UK are about to just be pictures of the bottle because her actual promos look like she’s being filmed in a sudsed-up washing machine.
morning and night 💦 pic.twitter.com/y5jibIxnfM
— Kylie Skin (@kylieskin) May 29, 2019
Pic: Instagram