Heavenly Secrets Private Limited - Pilgrim

Recommendation: Upheld | Medium: Suo Moto

In the absence of a written response from the influencer/advertiser on or before the prescribed due date, the ASCI Secretariat considered this complaint exparte. Advertisement shows an Influencer promoting a skincare brand. The advertisement does not carry a disclosure label that clearly identifies it as an advertisement. The influencer has not disclosed details regarding any material connection, monetary or non-monetary between the advertiser and the influencer nor does it indicate whether or not the influencer was paid to post the details of the advertiser’s product. The influencer has not mentioned disclosure labels such as "Advertisement", "Ad", "Sponsored", "Collaboration", “Partnership”, "Employee", "Free Gift" in the Instagram advertisement post. The advertisement is misleading by omission and exploits consumers’ lack of knowledge. Since necessary disclosures were not inserted in the captioned advertisement, the said advertisement is in contravention of Chapter I, 1.4 and 1.5 of the ASCI Code, and Clause 1, 1.1(a) and 1.3(a) of ASCI’s Guidelines for Influencer Advertising in Digital Media. This complaint was UPHELD by Secretariat.