Stuart McMillan MSP has teamed up with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to make consumers aware of the advertising rules relating to the promotion of (non-surgical) medical aesthetic services.
The local SNP MSP wants to stress these rules to local business too, after witnessing promotions on social media which breach advertising rules relating to prescription-only medicines (POMs), which in some cases could also breach gambling rules.
Commenting, Stuart said:
“For a few years now, I’ve been working with local healthcare professionals who offer medical aesthetic treatments about the need for greater regulation of these services to improve patient and consumer safety.
“As part of that, I’ve been learning about the various rules and regulations they must abide by – including advertising.
“I was therefore concerned to notice businesses promoting products and services which breach the ASA’s Advertising Code. This is because words such as ‘Botox’ are not permitted to be used when advertising medical aesthetic treatments, and some businesses have even tried to sell these using lottery draws, which bring gambling rules into play and could potentially be illegal.
“There’s also the issue of GDPR to consider when posting people’s details on social media as part of any draws for treatments or services.
“I am not suggesting businesses that have breached these rules have done so deliberately, but it does concern me that they may not be aware of all the rules and regulations they need to follow to operate a safe and proper business.
“Therefore, if anyone sees a business breaching these rules or thinks they might be in breach of the ASA’s Advertising Code, you should report this to the ASA.
“This isn’t about penalising businesses – it’s about providing the ASA with an opportunity to engage with businesses and educate them on the rules they should be adhering to. This in turn should improve patient safety and consumer protection.”
ASA Director of Complaints and Investigations, Miles Lockwood said:
“We’re grateful to Stuart McMillan MSP for raising his concerns with us, and for the opportunity to work together to remind businesses of their duty to follow advertising rules and reassure consumers that we will act if and where our rules are being broken.
“It might surprise a lot of people to learn that, because they’re prescription only medicines, products like Botox can’t be advertised to the public. We know from a comprehensive crackdown in this area that many health and beauty practitioners, often small businesses or sole operators, are themselves unaware of the rules. We have an array of resources to help them get it right. But where we find these ads appearing we report them straight to the social media company for take down.
“In the last two years, using our AI-based Active Ad Monitoring system that uses machine learning to help us act at scale and speed in identifying potential problem ads, we proactively had more than 50,000 posts for POMs taken down online.
“We welcome Stuart signposting to his constituents our online complaint form and encourage anyone with concerns about ads of this nature, or others, that they have seen, heard or interacted with to send us the details.”
Help and Advice for businesses on Botox ads
ASA Enforcement Notice on Botox
ASA Enforcement Notice on Kenalog
ASA Enforcement Notice on Advertising of prescription-only weight-loss treatments
