Huel and Zoe ads featuring Steven Bartlett banned for ‘misleading’ consumers

Zoe and Huel have had their wrists slapped by the advertising watchdog for running “misleading” ads featuring Steven Bartlett.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled the two nutrition brands had failed to disclose their commercial relationships with the Dragons’ Den star in paid-for Facebook promotions and banned the adverts from appearing again in their current form.

Bartlett is an investor in Zoe and a director at Huel, but none of the adverts made these facts clear, according to the regulator.

Two adverts for Huel on Facebook were “likely to mislead”, while a Zoe ad “was misleading”, according to the ASA rulings.

The ASA received seven complaints about two Huel Facebook ads run earlier this year, with one for the Daily Greens drink featuring text attributed to Bartlett calling it the brand’s “best product”. The second advert featured two videos side-by-side, with one showing Bartlett and the other a person looking at their mobile phone. Superimposed text between the videos stated, “Is Huel actually nice?”, with Bartlett responding, “This is the best product that Huel have released”.

Two complainants challenged whether the omission in a Zoe Facebook advert of Bartlett’s commercial interest was misleading. It featured an image of Bartlett with a Zoe patch on his arm and a quote that stated: “If you haven’t tried Zoe yet, give it a shot. It might just change your life.”

The ASA said all the ads were “obviously identifiable” as marketing communications and Bartlett would have been known to many consumers through his appearances on Dragons’ Den and his other enterprises. However, the watchdog considered that many consumers would interpret the ads as featuring a testimonial from Bartlett.

It added many consumers were unlikely to understand that Bartlett had a financial interest in Huel’s performance. And the regulator also considered the phrasing in the Zoe advert to be reminiscent of how a customer might review a product and how an independent testimonial might be presented.

“We considered that Bartlett’s [Huel] directorship was material to consumers’ understanding of the ads, and so relevant for them in making an informed decision about the advertised product,” the ASA said in its ruling.

“Because the ads omitted material information about Steven Bartlett’s position as a director at Huel, we concluded they were likely to mislead.”

It added: “Steven Bartlett was an investor in Zoe, which we considered was material to consumers’ understanding of the ad and relevant in making an informed decision about the product. Because the ad omitted material information about Steven Bartlett being an investor in Zoe, we concluded that it was misleading.”

Both Huel and Zoe responded to the ASA in their defence that the adverts were in the standard Facebook format and were identifiable as ads due to the use of ‘sponsored’ labelling. The brands argued that when celebrities endorsed products, consumers generally understood they did so in the context of a commercial relationship with the company behind the product.

They said Bartlett was a “well-known celebrity, entrepreneur, and investor” thanks to his regular appearance on Dragons’ Den, his 3.5 million Instagram followers, the six million subscribers for his The Diary of a CEO podcast and a bestselling book.

“Consumers had no doubt about the existence of such commercial relationships when they saw the endorsement within a paid-for ad taken out by a company,” Huel added in its response to the ASA. “This expectation then removed the need for the commercial relationship to be explicitly stated, and that this was the case regardless of the exact nature of the relationship.”

Zoe said that if it was obliged to include a specific disclosure about the nature of Bartlett’s status as an investor it would have a wider impact on other brands and influencers. The business believed it undermined the principle that ads on owned media are usually obviously identifiable as advertising and that ‘ad’ was sufficient enough to make influencer advertising obviously identifiable as advertising.

A Zoe spokeswoman told The Grocer that neither the CAP Code or any of the ASA’s guidance suggested it was necessary to go into granular detail about the precise nature of an ambassador’s commercial relationship with a brand.

“We believe the ad was compliant with the CAP Code,” she said. “We respect the ASA’s work in upholding transparency in online advertising and have provided a written assurance that it will not appear again in that form. We would welcome further guidance to bring clarity on the effect of this decision, to ensure that all our future advertising complies with the CAP Code.”

A spokeswoman for the ASA told The Grocer: “Our rules are clear – ads can’t omit material information that might allow people to make informed decisions about whether to buy a product or service. In this case, Steven Bartlett has particular commercial relationships with both ZOE and Huel.

“Both featured statements from Bartlett that could be seen as testimonials, like “the best product Huel have released” and “it might just change your life”. As such, because the ads didn’t make clear the commercial relationships he has with both companies, we found these ads to be misleading.”

It is not the first time Huel has fallen foul of the ASA regulations, with a 2022 advert featuring Bartlett also found to have breached the code for covertly advertising the meal replacement brand.

Bartlett was also warned by the BBC in 2022 for breaching the broadcaster’s guidelines on advertising after he wore a product from a jewellery brand on Dragons’ Den and shared a plug for the products in a social media clip. Bartlett called the move, in a statement at the time, “a genuine oversight on my part”.

Bartlett is no stranger to controversy and has faced criticism for not being transparent with the valuation of the SocialChain business he co-founded in 2014. The entrepreneur claimed to be responsible for creating a business worth over $300m following SocialChain’s takeover by German e-commerce firm Lumaland in 2019. The German business rebranded itself as The Social Chain AG before making further acquisitions and floating on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

However, questions were raised about the true valuation of SocialChain when Brave Bison, an AIM-listed digital marketing company, acquired the original business for just £7.7m in 2023.

Huel and Bartlett did not respond to requests for comment.