The relationship between advertisers and vloggers has been called into question following a complaint from a BBC journalist that has seen the Advertising Standards Association (ASA) ban a string of YouTube videos featuring Oreo biscuits.
The five video adverts, which see UK vloggers take part in an Oreo ‘lick race’ challenge, have been deemed misleading under the ruling that the audience – largely teenage girls – would not have “readily identified” the commercial intent of the videos before engaging with the content.
Between them, the paid vloggers – which included Dan Howell, Phil Lester, Thomas Ridgewell and Emma Blackery – have almost seven million YouTube subscribers.
While producers Mondelez UK said that they had not intended to mislead consumers and that vloggers had been briefed beforehand to make it clear that they were working with Oreo, the ASA stated that the distinction between the presentation of each ad and editorial content was not immediately clear.
“[The ASA] considered that the disclosure statements used, such as “Thanks to Oreo for making this video possible”, either in the video or in the text descriptions, were insufficient to make clear the marketing nature of the videos because, although they might indicate to some viewers that Oreo had been involved in the process, they did not clearly indicate that there was a commercial relationship between the advertiser and the vloggers (i.e. that the advertiser had paid for and had editorial control over the videos),” the ASA said.
“Because the statements did not fully establish the commercial intent of the videos, and because no disclosures were made before consumer engagement with the material, we concluded that the ads were not obviously identifiable as marketing communications.”
Consequently, the ASA has ruled that the ads must not appear again in their current form.
ISBA, the voice of British advertisers, has welcomed the ban, with Ian Twinn, director of public affairs, saying that consumers “deserve respect”.
“There are of course a lot of vloggers that adhere to the rules and are transparent about their content, but not everyone is equally savvy,” said Twinn.
“In the UK the rules are clear: in a tweet include #ad, and for Facebook or YouTube just say it’s an advert. It might even help vloggers get more work! Brands want to respect their consumers and protect their brand value.”
