The celebrities at risk from new influencer rules

Ada Nicodemou, Jules Sebastian, Elsa Pataky, Lara Worthington are the influencers most used to flog vitamins, teeth-whitening products and sunscreen.

Social media influencer Jane Scandizzo.

Celebrities Ada Nicodemou, Jules Sebastian, Elsa Pataky, Lara Worthington and Chris Hemsworth are the influencers most used to flog vitamins, teeth-whitening products and sunscreen, new analysis has found.

The vitamins companies Swisse and Nature’s Way made the most use of influencers, while the sunscreen manufacturers Ultra Violette and Natio also heavily engaged the celebrities.

Jane Scandizzo, the star of Netflix’s Yummy Mummies, Home and Away actor Nicodemou, and designer Jules Sebastian were the influencers with the most reach engaged by ­Nature’s Way, which engaged 100 Australian influencers who shared 125 posts, reaching 646,000 people.

Ada Nicodemou

Elsa Pataky.

Swisse engaged with 76 Australian influencers on Instagram in the past six months, who shared 117 posts, with an estimated campaign reach of 1.1 million people. The vitamin company spent an estimated $270,000 paying influencers. Pataky, Hemsworth and model Worthington had the most reach.

The sunscreen company Ultra Violette was the brand that engaged with the most influencers in the past six months, ­engaging with 327 Instagram ­influencers who made 676 posts, reaching an estimated audience of 2.6 million people.

Natio used TikTok make-up star Maria Yousif and its most engaged post came from nano-influencer Casey Middz, a Melbourne make-up artist.

The companies and influencers will be caught out by new Therapeutic Goods Administration rules which ban influencers from receiving cash or freebies for giving personal testimonials about therapeutic goods. They will still be allowed to promote products, but must do so in general terms.

The advertising code applies to all medicines, medical devices, vitamins and supplements, and general health products.

The analysis of the influencer market was carried out by Hype­Auditor, the AI analytics platform for brands that want fair and transparent influencer marketing.

Jules Sebastian.

Lara Worthington.

Alexander Frolov, the CEO and co-founder of HypeAuditor, said the ruling was ­likely to cause confusion based on a lack of clarity around what constitutes a therapeutic good and a personal experience.

“While brands and influencers take time to assess what the ruling means … we don’t believe that it will stop brands from working with influencers,” he said. “Influencer marketing shows ­excellent return on ­investment in this particular category and, with a few tweaks to how the content is worded, there shouldn’t be any major disruptions. Interestingly, Flat Tummy Co, an Australian-founded brand which would fall under the category of a therapeutic good, was one of the first to effectively use influencer marketing on a global scale. HypeAuditor’s data shows its 388 engaged Instagram influencers reached 10.9 million people in June 2021 alone.”

Under new TGA rules, anyone receiving “valuable consideration” for their testimonials are taken to be persons who are involved with the production, sale, supply or marketing of the goods, hence falling under the rules.