An influencer can be defined as a recognised individual expressing a point of view or giving advice in a specific area where the audience identifies with them.
In France, we have many influencers who have made a name for themselves on reality shows. They are followed by millions of people (Julien Tanti 5.1 million, Maeva Ghennam 3.3 million and Milla Jasmine 3.1 million on Instagram) and very frequently offer product placements.
For influencers, product placement is an advertising technique that consists of placing a company's brand or product as prominently as possible in their content in exchange for remuneration, privileges or gifts...
The Autorité de Régulation Professionnelle de la Publicité has proposed deontological rules to better regulate this profession and its practices. For example, it has made it compulsory to mention commercial collaboration in 2019.
But sometimes these product placements can cause problems.
Here are three examples of failures of product placements made by French influencers:
- Some customers never received the products promoted by the influencer, most often from recently created sites without legal mentions such as Beauty Private which was partnering with several influencers a few weeks ago.
- Some influencers promoted the perfect body by promoting cosmetic surgeons and doctors, such as Maeva Ghennam in 2021 who promoted injections to rejuvenate her vagina.
This can have serious consequences for the mental and physical health of the often young community that follows the influencer. In addition, it is forbidden in France to advertise medicine, and the same goes for cryptocurrency and trading.
- Some influencers promoted brands selling illegal products such as the brand Tinky selling counterfeit perfumes.
These three examples can be seen as accidents, clumsiness or even a lack of information from the influencers, but in reality, these kinds of failures of influencers in product placements are quite common.
I consider that these failures should not happen because they can have serious consequences: the products sold can be dangerous to health, they impoverish people who will never receive their purchase, it can lead to legal disputes because of the illegality of the products sold etc...
Nowadays, there are more and more laws regulating the new professions of influence. But these kinds of problems still exist.
So, is it a problem of laws that are not strict enough and that do not punish enough or is it a problem of vagueness in the limits of the profession and everything that touches it?
And who should be blamed: the advertiser, the influencer, his/her agency or the customers?