Molly-Mae Hague broke advertising rules on Instagram, according to an ad watchdog.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has reprimanded the former ‘Love Island’ star for an image of herself wearing a coat from Pretty Little Thing – with whom she shares a commercial agreement – as a complainant argued the post wasn’t obviously identifiable as a piece of marketing communication.
Back in September, Molly-Mae captioned the image with a brown leave emoji – but no ‘#ad’ or equivalent note – and simply wrote: "A/W, I’m ready"
Pretty Little Thing argued that the Instagram post was "organic" and "unpaid", adding that the company had no control or prior knowledge of the post.
However, the ASA said: "The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such, and that they made clear their commercial intent, if that was not obvious from context.
"In addition, marketers and publishers must make clear that advertorials were marketing communications.
"The ASA understood that there was a financial agreement in place between Prettylittlething.com Ltd and Molly-Mae Hague under which she would be a Brand Ambassador for Prettylittlething.com Ltd."
The association noted while the 20-year-old reality star identifies herself as a brand ambassador in her Instagram bio, some users could have come across her posts without following her and not known about her role.
The body added: "We noted that Ms Hague tagged @prettylittlething to the image, but we did not consider the content of the post made clear whether it was advertising, as opposed to, for example, genuinely independent editorial content.
"Therefore in the absence of a clear identifier, such as ‘#ad’, we concluded that the post was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication and that it breached the Code."
The ASA ruled the post must not appear in the same form again.
In a statement, a Pretty Little Thing (PLT) spokesperson said: "PLT is aware of the ASA guidelines and strives to ensure all its Influencer ads comply with ASA guidelines.
"In this instance, the post made by Molly-Mae was an organic, unpaid post in which Molly tagged PLT in the image. PLT and Molly will continue working together to ensure the ‘paid partnership’ tag is used, where relevant, in all further posts."
Love Island’s Molly-Mae Hague broke advertising rules, says watchdog
