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
Two TikTok ads promoting the weight-loss injection, Mounjaro:
a. The first ad, seen on the account @danyelamarshall, on 10 December 2024, featured a video of a woman with onscreen text which stated “What I eat in a day on Mounjaro”, she said “Hi guys so I keep getting asked what I eat in a day and can I show you guys what I eat in a day on Mounjaro”. She then showed plates with small portions of food on them. She said “I just injected yesterday so this will be on a day where I have no appetite like today”. A caption on the post stated “[…] use my @UK.Meds code ‘DANYELA5’ for money off your pen, link in my bio x […] #mounjaro #weightloss #transformation”.
b. The second ad, seen on the account @sparklebyellex, on 10 February 2025 featured a video of someone visiting a supermarket while the voiceover said “My name’s Ellie and I’ve lost 66 pounds on Mounjaro”. At the end of the video it showed a hand holding a box of Mounjaro KwikPen medication. The voiceover said “I always get this question, so I get my Mounjaro from UK Meds code Ellie 10 will save you £10 I’ll pop it on the screen”. A caption on the post stated “I get my Mounjaro from @UK.Meds and code ‘ELLIE10’ will save you £10 #mounjaro #mounjarojourney #mounjaroupdate #mounjaroprescription […] #mounjaroinjection”.
Issue
- The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) challenged whether ad (a) breached the Code because it promoted prescription-only medicines (POMs) to the public.
- The ASA challenged whether ad (b) breached the Code for the same reason.
Response
UK Meds Direct Ltd t/a UK Meds Direct said that both influencers were engaged in their now-discontinued affiliate programme. They acknowledged that the ads could have been interpreted to promote prescription-only medicines (POMs). They said that when the ASA made them aware of the investigation, they contacted the influencers to request that they removed the ads. They said @danyelamarshall removed her ad, however @sparklebyelle did not, and that they had now ended their collaboration with @sparklebyelle.
They said that to ensure full compliance, they had permanently discontinued influencer marketing. They said the referral codes contained in the posts were unique to specific affiliates and provided customers with a discount of their next purchase. The affiliates were also entitled to a £100 bonus, if 100 customers used their unique code.
They said they had also disabled their “refer a friend” feature for all POM products on their website.
@sparklebyelle said she received an initial payment for creating content for UK Meds, and then a further payment for any videos that achieved over 30,000 views. She also said she took this issue seriously, that the ad had been removed and that she had taken action to ensure her future advertising was compliant.
@danyelamarshall did not respond to the ASA’s enquiries.
Assessment
The ASA was concerned by @danyelamarshall’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
The CAP Code stated that POMs or prescription-only medical treatments must not be advertised to the public.
The ASA understood that UK Meds Direct, a platform provider that provided an online prescription service selling weight-loss medication including POMs, operated an “affiliate” scheme. We understood that this scheme provided affiliate marketers with a unique referral code that could be shared with followers, who could enter the Code to receive a discount when completing their first order. We understood that if the same unique referral code was used by 100 new customers, the individual linked to that code was entitled to a commission payment.
We understood that the posts were made from public accounts on TikTok and therefore could be viewed by anyone, not just followers of the individual TikTok users.
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 “#mounjaro” in ad (a), and “#mounjaro”, “#mounjarojourney”, “#mounjaroupdate” and “#mounjaroprescription […] #mounjaroinjection” in ad (b) promoted POMs to the public.
Similarly, we considered the image of a Mounjaro pen box in ad (b), also promoted POMs to the public.
We understood that all injectable forms of weight-loss medication were POMs. We therefore considered the reference to “pen” in ad (a), in the context of an ad which included references to Mounjaro, also promoted POMs to the public.
For those reasons, we considered ads (a) and (b) promoted POMs to the public and concluded 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 UK Meds Direct Ltd t/a UK Meds Direct, @sparklebyelle and @danyelamarshall not to promote POMs to the public in future.
