Background
This Ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on prescription-only medicines (POMs) used for weight loss. The ads were identified for investigation following intelligence gathering by our Active Ad Monitoring system, which uses AI to proactively search for online ads that might break the rules. See also related rulings published on 9 July 2025, 17 December 2025 and 11 February 2026.
Ad description
Four Instagram ads promoting the weight-loss injection, Mounjaro:
a. The first ad, on the account stephenwilliamhair, posted on 25 December 2024, featured an image of a man with overlaid text stating, “A year ago today I was fat”. Text in a caption stated, “[…] go see if you are eligible for Voy’s medicated weight loss [sic]. DM the word Voy and I’ll send you a link for 25% off […] #mounjarojourney #mounjaroweightlossjourney #mounjarojourney #mounjarotribe […]”.
b. The second ad, in the bio of the account rosiemj_journey, seen in May 2025, featured text stating “A girl on a mounjaro journey [star emoji] 25% off your first order with Voy / ROSIEOIG” followed by a link to the Voy website.
c. The third ad, also on the account rosiemj_journey, posted on 4 May 2025, featured text in a caption stating, “The month I started mounjaro vs my 6 month of mounjaro [heart emoji, star emoji] I have lost nearly 4 stone on this!! If you are interested in starting on your own journey, please have a look into VOY, absolutely incredible company with even better support! [heart emoji] use code ROSIEOTT for 25% off your first order #mounjaro #voymounjaro […] #glpforweightloss #mounjarojourney”.
d. The fourth ad, a joint post by rosiemj_journey and joinvoy, dated 20 April 2025, featured “before” and “after” photos of the accountholder. Text in a caption stated, “[…] before [arrow emoji] after #mounjaro #weightloss”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether ads (a) to (d) breached the Code because they promoted prescription-only medicines (POMs) to the public.
Response
Menwell Ltd t/a Voy said they were unable to comment on the treatment status of specific individuals for reasons of confidentiality and that included confirming whether or not someone was using or had used their service. They said that where an individual posted information about themselves on social media (whether or not that was as part of a voluntary affiliate programme, or as part of a refer-a-friend scheme), that would be a matter for them and did not constitute a waiver of Voy’s legal duty to maintain their privacy.
Voy pointed out that the Scope of the Code paragraph 1(h) stated that the Code applied to ads on company’s websites or in non-paid-for space online under their control that were directly connected with the supply or transfer of goods or services. They said it was clearly a two-stage test based on: (i) the location of the advertising (either on a company’s website or in other non-paid-for space online under their control) (the “control test”); and (ii) the commercial nature of the offering.
They pointed to two pieces of relevant guidance issued by CAP; one such guidance included the “control test” in assessing whether a post in non-paid-for space online fell within the remit of the Code, whereas the other did not. They believed the ASA was incorrectly following the guidance which omitted the “control test” in disregard of paragraph 1(h) of Scope of the Code.
They believed the posts in question were not under their control and therefore were not ads falling within the remit of the CAP Code.
In relation to ad (a), stephenwilliamhair said they apologised for the content causing concern and requiring a complaint to be raised. They said they had removed the post in question and intended to make changes to their future content.
Stephenwilliamhair understood that the MHRA Blue Guide 5.2 and CAP Code rule 12.12 prohibited the promotion of POMs such as GLP-1s and therefore posts like #mounjarojourney could be considered non-compliant. They said that a hashtag did not typically or necessarily detail any information relating to the post. Hashtags were used to drop content into pools of people possibly interested in that subject. For example, they might use ‘#weightwatchers’ for posts relating to a medicated weight-loss journey, even though that was not the content of the post. They said they did not put the specific prescription medication name in the caption or post itself and that hashtags were simply a metadata tag rather than a description of the post’s content.
Stephenwilliamhair also said they were unsure how the post was within the remit of the CAP Code. When the post was published, they were not in a contractual relationship with Voy. They said they had received no monetary payment, or payment of any kind for posting it. It had been posted simply as a fellow customer in order to gain a discount from their future order.
rosiemj_journey did not respond in relation to ads (b) – (d).
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by rosiemj_journey’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 provide a response to our enquiries and told them to do so in the future.
Upheld
We understood that Voy, an online pharmacy selling weight-loss medication including POMs, operated a ‘refer a friend’ scheme. Under the terms of that scheme, existing customers were given a unique discount code that they could share with friends. If the code was used by new customers to obtain a discount when placing their first order, the original customer would receive a discount credit to apply to their next order with Voy.
We understood that the posts were made from public accounts on Instagram and therefore could be viewed by anyone, not just followers of the individual Instagram users.
We also understood that there was concern among public bodies in the healthcare field about the potential health risks associated with the prohibited advertising of weight-loss POMs to the public.
We first considered whether the posts were advertising and therefore fell within the scope of the CAP Code.
Paragraph I(h) of the Scope of the Code stated that the Code 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 […]”.
We considered that the social media posts, which were promoting a discount code for a pharmacy brand under a referral scheme whereby the poster of the code received payment in kind (a discount off their next order with the brand) when the code was used by a new customer, were directly connected with the supply or transfer of goods or services.
We also considered that the posts, which were in non-paid-for space online, were under Voy’s control. As the operator of the scheme, they could, for example, stipulate how the referral codes were to be shared, impose a cap on the number of referrals that could be made with a code or credits that a member could accrue, and they could decide to revoke existing credits if members did not comply with their terms or guidelines. They therefore had a degree of control over the social media posts of the members of their referral schemes. Furthermore, ad (d) had been jointly posted by Voy and the Instagram account holder, rosiemj_journey.
For those reasons, we considered the posts were ads under paragraph 1(h) Scope of the Code.
The CAP Code stated that prescription-only medicines (POMs) or prescription-only medical treatments must not be advertised to the public.
The ads all contained references to “mounjaro”. We understood that Mounjaro (tirzepatide) was classed as a POM. We therefore considered the references to “mounjaro” in the ads, whether or not such references were preceded by a hashtag or were part of larger references such as “mounjarojourney”, “mounjaroweightlossjourney”, “mounjarotribe” or “voymounjaro”, promoted POMs to the public.
Ad (c) also referred to “glp1forweightloss”. We understood that GLP-1 (Glucagon-like peptide-1) was a class of POMs. Therefore, we considered the reference to “glp1” in ad (c) promoted POMs to the public.
Because ads (a) – (d) promoted POMs to the public, we concluded that they breached the Code.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 12.12 (Medicines, medical devices, health-related products and beauty products).
Action
The ads must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Menwell Ltd t/a Voy, stephenwilliamhair and rosiemj_journey not to promote POMs to the public in future.
