The code to keeping influencers honest
Stephen von Muenster, partner, and Rosie Carnegie, solicitor of von Muenster Legal, look at instances of Instagram influencers against the AANA Code of Ethics.
In February 2021, The Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) updated their Distinguishable Advertising requirements under Section 2.7 of the Code of Ethics (the code), which now simply states: “Advertising shall be clearly distinguishable as such”.
Since then, numerous complaints have been made against mega, macro, and micro influencers, triggered by the lack of commercial transparency influencers are showing on posts featuring products where the influencer has been paid, received value in kind or incentivised by receiving the product itself for free. With the Instagram influencer market expected to grow 15% in 2021 (according to the State of Influencer Marketing 2021 Report created by HypeAuditor) and as the call for transparency and compliance among influencers becomes more prevalent, there is no doubt there will be increased regulatory pressure placed on those influencers and brands not complying with the code.
Whilst we are yet to see a prosecution by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) in such circumstances, Ad Standards has now been very active in assessing complaints from consumers concerning influencer transparency.
