Steven Bartlett, the British entrepreneur and investor on Dragons Den, has seen adverts for his brands Huel and Zoe banned after failing to properly disclose his relationship with the companies.
Three Facebook adverts are at the centre of an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after they were found to have “omitted material information” about their links to the Diary of a CEO podcast host.
Bartlett is a director at Huel, the nutrition company, and an investor in Zoe, the health monitoring business.
According to a ruling set to be issued by the ASA, and reported by the Times, two adverts for Huel were found to be “likely to mislead”, while a Zoe advert “was misleading”.
Rules were breached regarding non-broadcast adverts, sales promotions, and direct marketing communications, with the ASA warning that the ads “must not appear again in the complained about form”, the ruling is predicted to say later this week.
As per the Times report, the Zoe advert in question is said to have included Bartlett, with a quote from him saying: “If you haven’t tried Zoe yet, give it a shot. It might just change your life.”
It was argued by the ASA that such an advert was “reminiscent of how a customer might review a product, and how an independent testimonial might be presented.”
Zoe claimed: “The average consumer would understand there was a commercial relationship between the brand and the individual and did not need to know the exact nature of that relationship”.