The Influencer Marketing Trade Body (IMTB) has been appointed as a member of the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP).
With the aim of securing a sustainable, professional future for influencer marketing, the IMTB officially launched at the Influencer Marketing Show with a keynote presentation titled: 'Profits from Professionalism' in October 2021. Since its launch, the NFP professional membership organisation has been dedicated to building a robust, sustainable future for the influencer marketing industry.
Starting with six founding members, the IMTB now has 15 member organisations: BENlabs, THE FIFTH, Fourth Floor, Good Relations, impact.com, INCA, R&CPMK, Ketchum, Ogilvy, SEEN Connects, Storm, Tagger, TAKUMI, Whalar and What They Said. Aligning with CAP is the most recent step in the organisation's growth.
The partnership setting the pace for the future
CAP is the sister organisation of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) – the UK’s independent advertising regulator that administers the CAP Code to keep ads legal, decent, honest, and truthful.
Scott Guthrie, Director General of the IMTB, believes that the IMTB joining CAP is a significant milestone both for the organisation and for influencer marketing as a whole, especially considering the IMTB is the first new CAP member in over a decade.
“IMTB will now provide direct representation of the influencer marketing sector to the committee. Better regulation and enforcement of that regulation leads to better trust, relevance, responsibility and effectiveness, for IMTB members and the industry as a whole. Together we aim to encourage greater professionalism and alignment with the regulatory system,” says Scott.
Now with the IMTB on its side, CAP's ability to write and update the rules on advertising in the UK via the CAP Code will be escalated.
Shahriar Coupal, Director of CAP, says, "Influencers increasingly represent a significant part of the advertising ecosystem and ensuring they understand how and when the ad rules apply to them is a focus of the ASA’s work… We have been impressed by IMTB's depth of subject matter expertise and look forward to their committee contributions.”
With complaints about influencer posts constituting almost a quarter of online cases brought to the ASA each year, CAP, alongside IMTB, is committed to encouraging and securing responsible influencer marketing which is increasingly aligned with the regulatory system.
