The Mrs Hinch Scandal: How “Nightmare” ASA Movements Lead to Pitfalls for Creator-Owned Brands

Sophie Hinchliffe – a “cleanfluencer” better known as Mrs Hinch – becomes the latest influencer to have her Instagram posts banned in a ruling by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK's self-regulatory organisation of the advertising industry.

This follows a string of rulings against creators who fail to make it obvious that they're promoting products in an advertisement, or even their own brands.

The complaints around Hinchliffe were received by the ASA last year, after she posted two Instagram Stories promoting a product from her brand - a Mrs Hinch notebook.

However, the complaints were upheld for only one of the post’s. The ASA referred to the second post in a statement: "the overall effect was that the Story was obviously identifiable as marketing communication for Ms Hinchliffe’s own branded notebook, without the need to be explicitly labelled with an identifier such as ‘ad.’”

Creators are running the game

2023 is setting up to be the year of creator-owned and creator-run businesses coming to the fore, according to Scott Guthrie, Influencer Marketing Trade Body (IMTB) Director General.

Guthrie shared his thoughts in a LinkedIn post, where he provided some examples of the creator-owned brands we're seeing this year: “From MrBeast Burgers and Feastables to KSI and Logan Paul Prime Hydration, David Dobrik pizzas - Doughbrik, Emma Chamberlain's eponymous coffee brand. The list goes on. And this is just the beginning.

“However, we're also seeing a spate of rulings by the ASA upholding complaints that some creators are failing to make obvious that they're promoting their own brands. The rulings mark the transition from influencers as endorsers to owners. From content creators to brand creators.”