Lack of regulation, brands ditching the #ad – the flaws in influencer marketing
The influencer marketing industry is broken. Brands are encouraging influencers not to use hashtags required by Australian consumer law to disclose paid content. Agencies are signing talent without sufficient vetting. And amongst all of this are industry bodies struggling to regulate the system.
SBS producer Elise Potaka spoke to Mumbrella’s Zoe Wilkinson about the flaws in the system she and journalist Calliste Weitenberg discovered in a four-part investigation for The Feed.
“One brand, in our journey, we were able to deal with… told us not to use the hashtag ad or hashtag sponsored post in the brief they sent us. So this brand was actually telling us in our guide as an influencer to break Australian consumer law.”
Starting tonight, SBS’ The Feed will be sharing a four-part investigation into Australia’s influencer marketing industry, which found that despite the smoke and mirrors of industry bodies introducing best practice guidelines and commercial disclosures written into law, this avenue of marketing is deeply flawed.
The series’ producer, Elise Potaka, says the onus is not just on influencers to ‘do the right thing’ when it comes to promotional content, and more needs to be done by brands, the social media platforms and the government to enforce the law.
“The government at a bigger level needs to ensure that consumers are informed and know that they can make complaints. As you can make a complaint about a TV ad, you can make a complaint about something that’s on a social media platform. And I guess consumers need to know that,” she said.
