INFLUENCERS AND FILTERS

In June 2020, Sasha Louise Pallari began a movement under the hashtag #FILTERDROP, encouraging users to stop using filters – and for brands to stop platforming content leaning on filters to make their products look good. Her approach: rejecting cancel culture, name-and-shame and knee-jerk reactions, was to contact brands directly, while exhorting her growing audience of supporters to reject the filters taking over social media feeds with the same homogenous looks, smooth skin, huge eyes and slimmed noses.

In part as a reaction to her movement, CAP have codified new guidance for influencers on the use of filters when advertising beauty products – formally recognising an issue that has been problematic in influencer marketing for a long time.

Image Credit @lintin9095

CAP (and Sasha) have taken care to distinguish ‘beauty filters’ (housed within Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, meaning that images are shot with the filters already applied) from other kinds of editing and manipulation that goes into social media content – both #FILTERDROP and the rulings on inappropriate use of image filters in #AD content that were ruled on in early 2021 (here and here) have made clear that it’s not about supressing creativity, but creating an atmosphere where real skin and facial features are both acceptable and embraced.

Influencer marketing thrives on peer-to-peer recommendations, and beauty is the multi-billion-pound industry at the heart of it. So, when filters are being used to sell or recommend products, there are serious implications for brands and influencers alike. We want to ask the question, where is the line between aesthetic and misleading?

A defined aesthetic is something that so-called social media gurus have historically recommended to content creators to make their feeds stand out, and even now, many influencers use their standard editing practices to unify their posts. The ability to edit photos in this way has also become a tangible revenue stream for influencers, some of which sell their ‘pre-set’ editing settings on programs like Adobe Lightroom so followers can easily replicate flattering tones to perk up photos and give them an Instagrammable edge.

As with much of the CAP influencer guidance, they have taken a nuanced view on filters – they aren’t banning anyone from using “Paris” – but the re-touching of photographic images “requires particular attention to avoid misleading consumers, and visual claims should not misleadingly exaggerate the effect the product is capable of achieving”. Filters smooth out and brighten to hide inconsistencies like skin tone, but this also interferes with showing the true effects of a beauty product intended to solve those exact problems – how can a consumer trust an under-eye concealer, or (more sinister still) an invasive therapy, when the end result isn’t really being shared?

It’s another move from the authority that places responsibility with brands, meaning that all influencer strategy must be considered in a more robust way in future. Proactively questioning influencers on their use of filters will have to become the norm, and (if you haven’t already) we recommend adding a clause about the use of filters into contracts when working with talent. It’s an opportunity to actively be a part of the movement, although inevitably there will be missteps along the way (some of the brands that Sasha Pallari initially approached after her followers called them out for reposting misleading filtered content often came back with denials – and less often, promises to do better).

So, it’s a learning process on both sides. Another question is whether influencers being held accountable in a way that other forms of advertising are not – we are sold mascara and shampoo by adverts with models and celebrity ambassadors wearing false eyelashes or hair extensions, so how is digital enhancement different? Obviously advertising content should speak to the credible benefits of a product, but where is the line between models used in a billboard commercial and those posting on social media? For consumers it’s often simple; influencers are like peers whereas celebrities in advertising are not (therefore not held to the same standard of realism). Hopefully this nuanced view of consumer expectations will also carry into the use of airbrushing and editing to transform faces and bodies to suit the homogenous beauty ideals that #FILTERDROP is hitting back at.

It goes without saying that many brands, particularly younger digital-first DTC brands that have made their names from posting ‘real’ skin (including facial hair, pore texture, acne-scarring and hyper-pigmentation) like Freck and Squish are already championing no filters or retouching in their brand content. This may (hopefully) be the future – where social media reflects a truer vision of what beauty is. It certainly seems to be what the customer wants.

In 2020, the online world became the default for many of us, with much of our human interaction taking place within social media apps. Social and digital media are the main ways that brands are reaching consumers at the moment, so the more that content can showcase realistic, diverse and genuine people the better – particularly for younger generations who will only know a life lived online. No one should face the expectations of constant perfection – and when filters are ubiquitous, it does a disservice to consumers and content creators alike.

If the future lies on TikTok, where influencers film their lip filler appointments and post radical filter-free makeup transformations, then we may have a view into the new generation of content. Indeed, perhaps the business of face-changing and morphing filters will be rendered as a ‘first wave’ influencer problem and become unacceptable and irrelevant for credible influencers. If users and forward-thinking brands can lead the charge with the backing of the ASA and CAP, then we may be at the beginning of a positive (if lengthy) process of change.

Putting paid partnerships to one side and instead considering the issue as a moral one; in an era of self-love and truth the idea of putting an alternate reality out to followers does seem a little off. Authenticity is the heart of the industry, so should you alter your content expect followers to be a little more hesitant of your recommendations.