Several complaints lodged against popular Irish influencer over online advertisements

One of the country's most popular fitness influencers Siobhan O'Hagan has received multiple complaints regarding advertising on her Instagram.

The complaints lodged to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) are in relation to five separate incidents wherein the influencer who has over 161,000 followers on Instagram either labelled ad content incorrectly or didn't label it at all. 

One of the complaints referred to O'Hagan publishing posts on her Instagram account about her podcast 'Life Lessons with...' which included various ways to subscribe to the podcast. The complaint alleges that the post was not identified as advertising material or that it was related to her 'own brand.'

READ NEXT: 'A lifesaver' - Creative ways people are collecting water amid Storm Éowyn outages

When it comes to such types of content, influencers must disclose any advertisements by either using one of three labels: #AD, #Gifted, or as in this case, #OwnBrand.  

O'Hagan has apologised for what she admitted was a mistake on her behalf. In response to the complaint, the ASA has ruled that future content should be accurately labelled. 

The other complaints made against the fitness influencer related to incidents where O'Hagan did not label advertising material correctly through the placements of the required hashtags. 

One complaint argued that O'Hagan had not adequately labelled an Instagram story for Emma Mattress because the word 'Ad' appeared at the bottom of the post without a hashtag. The ASA stated: "The Council noted that while the word ‘AD’ had been used, it had not been positioned correctly, nor had a hashtag (#) been used alongside it, therefore, the commercial content in this case had not been identified correctly as a marketing communication."

The ASA said that the omission of the hashtag and the incorrect placement of the ad disclosure was in breach of Sections 3.31 and 3.32 of the advertising Code.

A complaint of the same nature was made regarding posts about Califia Farms, Wild health and beauty products, and The Hut Group clothing items. Each of these cases concerned the incorrect positioning of advertising labels on posts and the fact that at times the hashtag was not included. 

The ASA has concluded that future advertising content should appear in the correct format.