Note: This advice is given by the CAP Executive about non-broadcast advertising. It does not constitute legal advice. It does not bind CAP, CAP advisory panels or the Advertising Standards Authority.
Health professionals and celebrities should not be used in ads to endorse medicines (Rule 12.18).
Endorsements by health professionals and celebrities could be viewed by the public and the ASA as giving undue appeal to one product over another or as an exploitation of the credulity of the audience.
Endorsements by health professionals
In 2012 the ASA upheld a complaint about an ad promoting spa treatments which stated "Facial Rejuvenation Clinic - Botox Treatments". Further text stated "Available now at our Clapham Branch in London. Dr. Natalia (Natty) Burgess BDS is a qualified Dental Surgeon…Natty is specially qualified in facial injection rejuvenation treatments and loves seeing the renewed confidence that people gain from the results”. The ASA considered the overall impression of the ad was that a qualified dental professional endorsed treatments using the POM and concluded the ad breached the Code (Anesis Spa, 11 July 2012).
It is worth noting that an individual health professional does not have to be named in order for the ASA to consider that an ad includes the problematic endorsement of a health professional. A supplement ad which presented the product as having a medicinal effect on prostate health, referred to the product as being a “doctor-formulated natural prostate supplement”, which the ASA considered to be an endorsement of a medicine by a health professional (Impact Herbs t/a Impact Subs, 10 December 2025).
Marketers should also be careful when using health professionals to advertise products even if that endorsement is not product-specific. Although health professionals may be associated with cosmetic products, marketers should not imply that health professionals endorse a range of products if some of the products in that range are medicines (Colgate Palmolive (UK) Ltd, 17 January 2007, and GlaxoSmithKline UK Ltd, 14 March 2007).
Endorsements by influencers
Marketers should also avoid using “celebrities” to endorse medicines. In July 2019, the ASA upheld a complaint in relation to post by a blogger on their Instagram account about an over-the-counter (OTC) medicine which was licensed for the treatment of short-term insomnia in adults. The advertising post referred to the bloggers positive experience of using the product, which the ASA considered was an endorsement of that medicine. The ASA noted the blogger regularly produced content across different social media platforms relating to her experiences as a parent and that her Instagram feed featured over 1000 posts that included recommendations on products. Because this blogger regularly posted recommendations about products and was popular with, and had the attention of a significant audience (over 30,000 followers at the time of the post), the ASA considered she was a “celebrity” for the purpose of rule 12.18 and that as such, this endorsement breached the Code (Sanofi UK, 3 July 2019).
CAP understands that there are not a minimum or maximum number of followers that creates a threshold at which an influencer is, or is not, a ‘celebrity’ for the purposes of this Code Rule and that the numbers of followers forms only part of the consideration of the reach of that influencer in a particular market.
Endorsements by celebrities
The use of more ‘traditional’ celebrities in ads for medicines are also likely to be problematic under rule 12.18.
In 2023, the ASA upheld complaints about social media video ads for an aesthetic clinic which featured Carl Woods being injected with a syringe. Whilst Botox was not specifically referenced, the ads referred to Allergan, a prescription only medicine and to “anti-wrinkle injections”, which the ASA understood was an indirect reference to Botox, another prescription only medicine.
Because Carl Woods was considered by the ASA to be celebrity, for the purposes of the Code rule, it ruled that the social media posts constituted a celebrity endorsement of a medicine (LIFT Aesthetics, 17 May 2023).