Beauty blogger Safiyah Tasneem's opinions on ASA and CMA guidelines
Date Posted: Monday 11th March 2019
Following our industry codes of conduct outlining The Influencer’s Guide by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) and Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), we caught up with beauty blogger and make-up artist, Safiyah Tasneem to find out what she thought about the new guidelines.
Ad Vs. Gifted
“Personally I think declaring something is gifted should have been enough without having to now say #adgifted. It causes confusion with followers and consumers who naturally associate #ad with payment. When I am sent products, I’m under no obligation to use them or feature them but I do it because blogging is my passion and job. My followers want to be kept up to date with new releases and I usually do this with unboxing’s on my story. Now I have to declare them as ads and it’s been stifling from a content creation point of view."
Ambiguity
"Additionally, the guidelines are not very clear-cut and appear contradictory. For example, the CAP code states that both payment and control of the content by a brand must be present for a post to count as an ad. However, the CMA states that if there has been any form of payment and that includes gifts/freebies, then a post counts as an ad. This itself has been frustrating as now it appears as if influencers only seem to post ads, which is confusing and messy.”
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