Influencer ad platform accused of false advertising; space-time continuum collapses

Not All Fun and Games

It's true that most social media influencers are relatively below the radar for above-the-radar types; dependable experts in a particular field or successful practitioners of a certain art or skill, they attract attention that can be parlayed into sales and brand loyalty.

But there are, of course, the influencers who draw followers because of their over-the-top behavior or outrageous lifestyles. We write about this type of influencer all the time – it's fun, and often allows us to indulge in a little schadenfreude.

Whether it's expert advice or over-the-top behavior that attracts the marketing dollars, there's a lot of behind-the-scenes effort that goes into influencer marketing. And we don't mean just primping or selfie-taking; there's also the business end, which is complicated.

Enter the influencer marketing platforms (IMPs).

Apples and Kardashians

IMPs purport to help businesses find influencers who are trustworthy and lucrative, monitor the operation of their campaigns, keep the ads aboveboard and otherwise assist with compliance, and measure success and awareness – it's a mountain of effort that would otherwise cost a company significant time and money in-house.

MLW Squared, which does business as Ahalogy (get it?), is an IMP offering a solution it has dubbed the "tri-verified influencer marketing platform."

The added value that Ahalogy claims for its platform addresses the often-deceptive or opaque nature of influencer advertising. In a world with fake influencers, how does a company know whether its influencer campaign is effective? How can it tell whether the money it spends on influencers stacks up against traditional ad dollars?

"Partnering with third-party verification solutions will be the first of many steps taken to correct the uncertainty that currently resides in the influencer marketing space," claims a 2017 press release announcing the arrival of Ahalogy's platform. The company claims that a tri-verified IMP uses just such third-party analysis to determine whether the ad traffic is high-quality and the metrics are sound.

Ahalogy's marketing claims for its platform were challenged before the NAD by Collective Bias, an IMP that competes with the company.

At the center of the challenge lies the difference between promoted and native posts. Promoted posts are paid-for content, easily tracked and assessed by third parties. But the efficacy of native posts – content posted by influencers on their personal social media accounts – is much harder to judge. Collective Bias accused Ahalogy of promising the accuracy associated with promoted content when tracking and assessing native posts.

The NAD held that "the advertiser's broad and unqualified claims that the Tri-Verified platform – and its integrated third-party verification service – allows for influencer marketing campaigns to be '100% verified' and can guarantee that 'impressions, traffic and other key engagement measures are valid,' reasonably suggests to consumers that its platform is able to verify 100% of all social media content ...."

Even though the company had used the term "paid media" in its advertising, the NAD maintained that the claims were not narrowed to promoted posts only. In addition, the Division found that Ahalogy had made claims that the platform was able to detect influencer fraud.

The Takeaway

The NAD's final recommendation split the difference – Ahalogy could either abandon the "100% verified" claims or modify the claims to make it clear that they applied only to promoted posts. Ahalogy agreed to comply with all the Division's recommendations.

All this summons up a nightmare scenario: Someday soon, influencer marketing will require a platform to provide third-party verification of the claims made by IMPs.

Mind. Blown.

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