Two Facebook adverts for the plant-based food brand Huel – featuring Steven Bartlett of Diary of a CEO and Dragons’ Den fame – have been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), after the watchdog found the ads for the company’s Daily Greens powder were “likely to mislead” viewers.
Seven people complained to the ASA about the two pieces of content, spotted in February and March this year, and questioned whether the “omission of [Bartlett’s] commercial interest in the company” (given he is a director of the company, per Companies House) was “misleading”.
The February ad was an image of the Daily Greens product with a quote attributed to Bartlett describing it as Huel’s “best product”, while the March advert was a video comprising two side-by-side videos showing Bartlett endorsing the food and an actor playing a sceptical potential customer questioning whether “Huel is actually nice” because “I keep seeing this guy all over the internet talking about [it]”.
Under the code set by the Committee for Advertising Practice (CAP), which the ASA enforces, marketing material “must not materially mislead or be likely to do so” and must not “mislead the consumer by omitting material information” – which the Code defines as “information that the customer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product”.
When approached by the ASA as part of its enquiries, Huel confirmed Bartlett was a director and said consumers “generally understood” that when celebrities endorsed products, they did so “in the context of a commercial relationship with the company behind the product”.
“Consumers had no doubt about the existence of such commercial relationships when they saw the endorsement within a paid-for ad taken out by a company. This expectation then removed the need for the commercial relationship to be explicitly stated, and that this was the case regardless of the exact nature of the relationship,” the ASA ruling reads.
Huel also said Bartlett invested in the company because he “liked their products” and that this investment was announced on their website and YouTube channel when it happened, receiving media coverage as a result.
Nevertheless, the two ads were banned from appearing again in their current form, with the watchdog writing it had told Huel to “ensure that future ads did not misleadingly omit material information regarding commercial relationships”.
The ruling continues: “We considered that many consumers would interpret the ads as featuring a testimonial from Steven Bartlett about one of Huel’s products. Steven Bartlett held a position as a director at Huel.
“We acknowledged Huel’s comments and agreed that some consumers might have thought that the ads were part of a commercial relationship with Steven Bartlett. However, many consumers were unlikely to understand from the ads that Steven Bartlett had a financial interest in Huel’s performance.
“We considered that Bartlett’s directorship was material to consumers’ understanding of the ads, and so relevant for them in making an informed decision about the advertised product.
Because the ads omitted material information about Steven Bartlett’s position as a director at Huel, we concluded they were likely to mislead.”
Indy100 has approached both Huel and Steven Bartlett for comment.
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