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Accounts Over 30K, Social Media’s ‘Celebrity’ Threshold, Cannot Endorse Medical Products
Posted On 05 Jul 2019
According to a recent ruling, anyone with more than 30,000 social media followers is considered a celebrity and, consequently, is subject to relevant advertising rules – including rules about promoting medical products.
The Telegraph UK reported that “mummy blogger” Sarah Willox Knott violated Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rules banning celebrities and health professionals from endorsing medical products when she put a post on her Instagram account promoting an over-the-counter sleeping aid.
The image in question appeared on Knott’s @thismamalife account this past February and shows the aforementioned “mummy” sitting in bed, smiling, with a box of Phenergan Night Time Tablets nearby.
According to the Telegraph UK, the post was marked as an ad and the company behind the sleeping aid, Sanofi, cleared the promotion with the healthcare trade body, the Proprietary Association of Great Britain, before Knott shared it. Knott was still in violation though because celebrities are outright not allowed to promote medical products. Knott, who had 32,000 followers at the time of the post (and currently has nearly 38,000), is considered a celebrity by ASA standards.
The threshold for celebrity, according to the ASA, is 30,000 or more followers. (Question: Is that followers per platform or followers collectively? Meaning, is a person with 12,000 Twitter followers and 18,001 Instagram followers a celebrity?)
The ASA stated that: “We considered over 30,000 followers indicated that she had the attention of a significant number of people. Given that she was popular with, and had the attention of a large audience, we considered that ThisMamaLife was a celebrity for the purposes of the CAP Code.”
The ruling is the first of its kind wherein a social media influencer has been brought to task for violating rules and regulations related to celebrities’ and health professionals’ endorsements of medical products. According to the Telegraph, despite this new ruling and precedent, the ASA will “still judge whether posts from smaller social media accounts breech its endorsement rules on a case-by-case basis.”
Bummer for this lady, but what can we learn from Knott’s legal woes?
Well, most obviously, whether they meant to or not, the ASA just gave many industry community members an implicit “celebrity” nod. How legitimizing! More significantly however, within the context of Instagram’s unstated but painfully apparent mission to purge itself of anything sex work-related, community members who are perhaps promoting things like boner pills or any sort of medical procedure (Botox, vaginal rejuvenation, perhaps dentistry..?) should be on alert.
It was unclear where the line defining “medical products” falls, however — mark my words — it will not be in a porn performer’s favor if the determination is left up to Instagram or the ASA.
Screengrab by YNOT. Image via Instagram here.
