As social media is becoming a part of life, the influence of numerous followers is gradually expanding. The criterion for determining whether or not they are celebrities for such influence is whether there are 30,000 followers.
In February, a lifestyle blogger with 32,000 followers on Anstagram posted photos and comments on social media about sleep aids sold by pharmaceutical company Sanofi. However, Instagram ads advertised by celebrities are not allowed under British law. Due to this problem, the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has questioned Sanofi’s actions.
In response, Sanofi argued that lifestyle bloggers have 32,000 followers and are quite small compared to celebrities such as Stephen Fry, who has 359,000 followers, and David Beckham, who has 55 million followers.
However, in making the final decision on the matter, the ASA said that, as Sanofi argued, the number of account followers is small compared to celebrities like David Beckham, but that accounts with more than 30,000 followers can attract considerable attention. He concluded that if there are more than 30,000 followers, it is enough to be regarded as a celebrity under the British advertising law, and that Sanofi’s public relations using such influence was illegal.
In some developed countries, including the UK, the act of promoting products by celebrities is regulated by law. However, according to the ASA’s ruling, there is a possibility that influential people with numerous followers will also be banned from advertising on social media in the future.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission attempted to impose a fine for promoting YouTuber’s popular FPS game CounterStrike Go betting site, but eventually settled and the fine was waived. Since then, the Federal Trade Commission has continued to track the presence of people who advertise on social media without a clear relationship to promotional products. However, since US law judges advertising behavior that focuses on the relevance of the promotional account, not the size of followers, it is difficult to judge that public relations activities are prohibited because the size of followers is more than tens of thousands like the UK.
Also, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s latest guidelines, the best practice is that it is important to keep the relationship clear when talking about a product, service or business, whether it is basically a blog, video or social media. Related information can be found here .