TINA.org Files Complaint against Diageo Regarding Its Ciroc Influencers

TruthInAdvertising.org 11 December 2018

Consumer Interest

The rise of Ciroc from a middling vodka brand to No. 2 in the premium vodka category in the U.S. can be tied in large part to one man: Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Before the hip hop mogul signed a marketing deal with the Diageo-owned brand in late 2007, the British-based liquor giant was barely moving 40,000 cases of Ciroc a year, as Diddy would later recall in a 2015 interview with The Washington Post.

“They said they weren’t doing much, and that it was struggling,” Diddy told the paper in regard to discussions with Diageo involving Ciroc. “So I decided to take a chance on the brand. We decided if it does well, we can be 50-50 partners.”

It did very well. Within about 14 months, Diddy said, “we went from selling 40,000 cases to a million cases.” Under the direction of Diddy and later, his company Combs Enterprises, sales of the vodka soared, reaching a peak in both 2014 and 2015 of 2.6 million cases sold. Sales of Ciroc have fallen a bit in recent years but still stand at 2 million cases a year. Considering that Diddy’s marketing deal earns him 50 percent of the profits, it’s safe to say he has no regrets.

Diddy continues to embrace a “Ciroc-and-awe” approach to branding, to borrow a term coined by Forbes. But he’s come a long way since he donned a mask of the 44th president and debuted “Ciroc Obama” in a “Diddy Blog” on YouTube in 2008. Today, Diddy has an army of hip hop artists, DJs, models, actors and actresses, reality TV stars, and other influencers helping him promote Ciroc vodka and brandy on social media – especially on Instagram. And Diageo, now one of the world’s largest producers of spirits, appears willing to let the marketing antics of these individuals go unchecked on the platform.

A TINA.org investigation has amassed more than 1,700 Instagram posts from 50 different Ciroc influencers that have failed to clearly and conspicuously reveal their material connection to the alcohol brand in violation of FTC law. More than a third of these posts come from Diddy, while others come from Ciroc influencers “hand-selected” by Diddy. Included in this group is “Guardians of the Galaxy” actress Mikaela Hoover, who posted the following Ciroc ad on Instagram earlier this year.

The FTC is clear in its endorsement guidelines that if someone has a material connection with a company — for example, a business or family relationship, a monetary payment, or the gift of a free product — they must disclose that connection since it could affect a consumer’s opinion about the product. For space-cramped platforms such as Instagram, the guidelines state that starting a post with AD: or #ad would likely be effective. (In regard to the placement of #cirocpartner in the post above, the FTC has said that placing a disclosure so far down in the caption of an Instagram post — in this case, on the sixth line — is easy to miss and unlikely to cut it. In fact, the disclosure does not even appear when viewed on the Instagram app without clicking “more.”) It is the responsibility of the marketer and the brand to advise influencers of their disclosure responsibilities and monitor their endorsements to ensure appropriate disclosures are made — a responsibility that Diageo has clearly shirked… Continue Reading…

Courtesy: TruthInAdvertising.org

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