Laura Whitmore’s TikTok and Instagram posts for a gin and vodka business were prohibited for being improperly targeted, claiming that drink might boost confidence, and not being clearly labelled as advertisements.
In July, advertising for The Muff Liquor Company showed new Sunday morning ITV presenter Whitmore sipping peppermint tea, then water, beer, then ‘Muff & tonic,’ while her dancing got more energetic.
‘I’ll be f***ed up if you can’t be right here,’ said the music in the background.
‘#MakemineaMuff’ and ‘If drinks were dance movements @muffliquorco #makemineamuff #muffboss #irishowned’ were written on the screen.
A complaint, who believed that ex-Love Island presenter Whitmore was an investor in The Muff Liquor Company, questioned if the advertisements were clearly recognised as marketing materials and were unlawfully targeted because they included alcoholic beverages.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigated whether the advertisements encouraged reckless drinking by implying that alcohol may boost confidence and change mood.
The Muff Liquor Company stated that it urged Whitmore, who made her West End debut in last year’s play 2:22 A Ghost Story, to remove the advertisements within 24 hours after being made aware of the complaint.
The company admitted she was a stockholder but stated she was not compensated for the advertisements.
They stated that 2.7% of Whitmore’s 1.6 million social media followers were under the age of 18, and so realised that the product was not unlawfully oriented to minors.
They had agreed with Whitmore that future advertising for The Muff Liquor Firm would be vetted by the company before being displayed after receiving informed of the complaint.
Whitmore informed the ASA that she used the hashtag ‘#muffboss’ to disclose her stakeholder position and that ‘#ad’ would not have been an appropriate disclaimer because she was not compensated by The Muff Liquor Company for the posts.
Despite the fact that the post appeared to belong within this category, TikTok said Whitmore had not utilised its sponsored content disclosure feature.
Instagram stated that it would not comment on the probe.
According to the ASA, the posts should have been clearly labelled as advertisements.
It was mentioned that Whitmore was a previous host of the television show Love Island, which was the seventh most-watched show among those aged four to 15 in the second quarter of 2022. As a result, a substantial number of persons under the age of 18 having TikTok accounts were likely to interact with Love Island-related content on the network.
‘Even if those individuals did not follow Ms Whitmore, we believed the algorithm would find Ms Whitmore’s postings to be of interest to them, resulting in them appearing in their ‘For You’ page,’ the ASA stated.
Referring to Whitmore’s dancing while drinking alcohol, the ASA added: ‘Whilst we acknowledged that the ads were presented in a light-hearted tone, nonetheless we considered that consumers would interpret the ads to mean that drinking alcohol could precipitate a change in an individual’s behaviour and could enhance an individual’s confidence.’
The ASA ruled that the ads must not appear again.