YouTube star Zoe Sugg has received a warning from the Advertising Standards Agency over one of her Instagram posts.
The 30-year-old – who is known as Zoella – came under fire last July when she shared a snap on social media, showing her donning a floral dress from ASOS.
Alongside the upload – shared on her Instagram story – she wrote: ‘Lots of you loving the dress I’m wearing in my newest photos!…
’It’s from @missselfridge Swipe up to shop… (Also popped it on my @liketoknowit profile if you’d rather shop straight from the app).’
Users who swiped on the post were taken to the ASOS website.
As well as this, she added ‘*affiliate’ to the bottom of the post – which was obscured by the ‘send via private message’ button.
Despite including this, the ASA states the vlogger didn’t make it clear that her story was for marketing purposes.
They have now ordered that Zoe must not post a similar advert on her page, and must make any sponsored or affiliate posts clearer in the future.
ASOS has since said they didn’t have any input into the post in question and were not aware of it beforehand, but acknowledged her ‘*affiliate’ message was not clear enough.
Influencers have been instructed to make it clear when they are being paid by a company to market their products.
They normally flag this by adding the hashtags #ad or #spon – proving that it’s a sponsored post.
Zoella commands more than £10,000 for a sponsored post on Instagram, thanks to her insanely loyal following, boasting 9.4million followers.
Not too shabby.
She recently had reason to celebrate after being crowned the UK’s wealthiest female social star under 30 last year.
According to Heat Magazine, Zoella has accrued an estimated wealth of £4.7million after taking over the internet with her popular brand.
She is said to rake in a whopping £600,000 a year from her two lifestyle channels.
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