Riyah Collins,BBC Newsbeat
@gracebeverleyInfluencer Grace Beverley broke advertising rules with six posts promoting her fashion brand, Tala, a ruling says.
The 27-year-old shared two reels and four TikToks in October which the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) have told her to remove.
Grace shared the videos of her promoting a coat from Tala and the company argued her followers would be aware of her relationship with the activewear brand.
But the ASA disagreed and found they breached rules that adverts must be obviously identifiable.
The watchdog said it had received more than 50 complaints about the posts not being clearly labelled as ads.
Grace, from London, created Tala in 2019. The brand said she was “synonymous” with the business and her followers would know that.
It said her connection to Tala was also made clear in her TikTok and Instagram bios, and pointed out references in the videos to the coat being made in factories “we literally had to beg at the door to get into”.
The reels were posted jointly with Tala’s Instagram account while the TikToks were shared in a playlist Grace had labelled “aggressive marketing”.
Tala made the case that all these factors combined would have made it clear to users that the posts were for marketing purposes.
@gracebeverleyHowever, the ASA said social media users who didn’t follow Grace and saw her videos would likely be unaware of her connection to the brand.
It said users would have to click through to her profile to see the references to Tala and this “did not amount to sufficient disclosure for individual ads”.
And while Grace hints at her links with the fashion retailer in the videos, the ASA noted “the ads were several minutes long and those references were made part-way through”.
“So a user was required to engage with the ads before they heard them,” it said.
The ASA told Grace and Tala that the ads must not appear again in their current form.
It also said all future ads must be “obviously identifiable” by using hashtags such as #ad.
Grace has a million followers on Instagram and more than 150K on TikTok. In 2020, she was added to the Forbes 30 under 30 list, which recognises rising talent in business.
She told BBC Newsbeat: “I am respectful of the ASA’s work and acknowledge their recent decision regarding my social media posts discussing Tala, a business I founded.
“I want to continue encouraging conversation, clarity and transparency on how business owners across industries can naturally talk about their own work online, in a way that distinctly differentiates from sponsored content.”
The Londoner isn’t the first influencer to fall foul of the ASA’s rules around social media ads.
Former Love Islander Molly-Mae Hague has been rapped by the watchdog three times for failing to make clear when she was promoting a product.
TikToker Danielle Walsh also had a video of her drinking four VK cocktails in under 90 seconds banned after the ASA said she failed to make clear she’d been given the drinks for free.
Tala told Newsbeat it supported Grace’s comment and that the company “has always endeavoured to follow ASA guidance and we will continue to do so in the future”.
