This Irish Influencer Has Just Been Investigated By The ASAI For Not Using #Ad And #Spon On Snapchat

Grace Mongey, the woman behind Faces By Grace, has become the first blogger in Ireland to be investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland for not disclosing paid-for content on Snapchat.

The ASAI issued guidelines for bloggers and online influencers earlier in the year which highlighted the importance of disclosing when posts are paid for. By using hashtags such as #Ad or #Spon, customers will be made aware of advertisements and won’t be misguided into buying various products and services.

The lifestyle and beauty blogger was formerly a brand ambassador for Miss Fit Skinny Tea, and after sharing three snaps about the brand’s offers without using #ad, followers of Grace reported her to the ASAI for not declaring the posts as sponsored.

However, Grace denies the claims, and told the advertising watchdog that she did use the “specific hashtag at the beginning of the promotion to clearly state that it was an advertisement” and that “she always used the appropriate hashtags to let her followers know when she was being paid for a collaboration”.

It seems the answer may lie in the way Snapchat posts disappear after 24 hours. The ASAI released a statement which said, “While we considered that there was no evidence in this case that relevant consumers had not seen all the snaps, including those identifying that the snaps were advertising, they were aware that snaps were available to view for 24 hours only.”

“Therefore, if snap number one in a series included the relevant hashtag but subsequent snaps did not include the hashtag and they were published some hours later, there would be a period when the first snap would no longer be available to view while the subsequent snaps would be.”

So Grace may have used #Ad in an initial snap, but the people who reported her to the ASAI may not have seen it if more that 24 hours had passed since it was posted.

In that case, it would be safer for bloggers and online influencers to include the relevant hashtags in every sponsored post, not just the first one, so that situations like this don’t arise again.

Grace has since addressed the situation in this thread on Twitter, saying that the brand told her “not to use #ad as I was their brand ambassador!!!! ?  I have the texts saying don’t use #ad but I still did.”

https://twitter.com/RosemaryMacCabe/status/878133795895091200

https://twitter.com/FacesByGrace/status/878149554650087424