Ad description
An Instagram post on Gemma Markland’s account @themarklandhome, published on 17 November 2025, included a video of two nutcracker themed cushions being arranged on a bed. Text on the video stated “AMAZON FIND nutcracker cushions”.
Text in the caption stated “Comment LINK if you’d like the link to these super cute nutcracker cushions! They got lots of love on my last post about putting Graces [sic] Christmas decs [sic] up so I wanted to dedicate a post to them!”.
Issue
The complainant challenged whether the Instagram post was obviously identifiable as a marketing communication.
Response
Guangzhoushi Yingyi Maoyi Youxiangongsi t/a LANPN did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Gemma Markland stated that she had not had any contact with the seller or company. She said she had bought the products herself and provided evidence to demonstrate that. She had posted about the cushions because she liked them and believed her followers would want the link. She therefore did not consider the post was an ad. She said that, if she had been gifted the items, paid to promote them or asked to review them in return for any other form of payment, she would have labelled the post as an ad, as she did on her other paid-for posts.
Amazon stated that all participants in its affiliate marketing programme, Amazon Associates, were required to comply with its internal policies, which required clear and appropriate disclosure of affiliate relationships. It said that, when it identified cases where creators had not met those requirements, it reminded them of their obligations, asked them to amend their content, and continued to monitor their compliance.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA was concerned by Guangzhoushi Yingyi Maoyi Youxiangongsi t/a LANPN’s lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 1.7 (Unreasonable delay). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
The CAP Code stated that marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such, and they must make clear their commercial intent if that was not obvious from the context. Paragraph I(h) of the Scope of the Code stated that it applied to “advertisements and other marketing communications by or from companies, organisations or sole traders on their own websites, or in other non-paid-for space online under their control, that [were] directly connected with the supply or transfer of goods, services, opportunities and gifts […]”. In cases of affiliate marketing, both the brand business and the affiliate marketer were responsible under the Code, notwithstanding the fact that the ads may have been created solely by the affiliate without any input from the business themselves.
The ASA first assessed whether the Instagram post from @themarklandhome was an ad. We understood that Ms Markland had purchased the cushions herself and had not received payment or any other incentive from LANPN, who we understood was the seller of the products at the time the ad was seen. The post invited Instagram users to comment “LINK” and Ms Markland would send a link to purchase the cushions. We understood that the cushions were available on Ms Markland’s Amazon storefront and that the link she provided was an affiliate link which would earn her commission when the cushions were purchased through the link. We therefore considered that the ad was directly connected with the supply of goods and was therefore a marketing communication for the purposes of the Code.
We then assessed whether the ad was obviously identifiable as such. The ad was an Instagram post which featured a video of Ms Markland putting the cushions on a bed in her home. We considered that consumers would understand the ad to be documenting her new home furnishings, which she was sharing with her followers as recommendations without financial incentive. We acknowledged that once consumers landed on Ms Markland’s Amazon storefront, built-in text on the platform stated “Earns commissions”. However, this was only visible to consumers after they had engaged with the link. Because consumers therefore had to engage with the ad before it was made clear that Gemma Markland would receive commission on purchases made via the link, we considered that this was insufficient to ensure that the post was obviously identifiable as an ad.
We concluded that, in the absence of a clear and prominent identifier such as “ad”, the ad did not make its commercial intent clear from the outset and was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication. We therefore concluded that it breached the code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 2.1 and 2.3 (Recognition of marketing communications).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Guangzhoushi Yingyi Maoyi Youxiangongsi t/a LANPN and Gemma Markland to ensure that their future ads were obviously identifiable as marketing communications, that the commercial intent was made clear, and that identifiers such as “ad” were clearly and prominently displayed. We referred Guangzhoushi Yingyi Maoyi Youxiangongsi t/a LANPN to CAP's Compliance team.
