The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned weight loss injection ads from three online pharmacies for “targeting body insecurities” and “promoting” prescription-only medicines (POMs).
“Ads that play on personal insecurities like body image are completely unacceptable,” the ASA said.
It stressed they cause “unnecessary anxiety, reinforce harmful stereotypes, and risk encouraging the unsafe use of powerful prescription medicines”.
The rulings were made against adverts from Chequp Health Ltd, MedExpress Enterprises Ltd and WLO Ltd (trading as SkinnyJab).
Read more: ‘Crystal clear’: ASA bans ‘indirect’ weight loss jab advertising
The ASA’s first ruling was made against a Chequp “paid-for Facebook ad” from July which featured “an image of a woman looking at herself in a mirror with text stating ‘I don’t want to be skinny. I just don’t want to be the biggest person in the room’”.
It found, among other things, that the ad “suggested that there was a stigma associated with being ‘the biggest person in the room’” and as such “irresponsibly exploited” insecurities “around body image”.
Irresponsible
A person “of the body size and shape shown” would “not necessarily” be unhealthy, the ASA continued, adding that “by showing the model looking into a mirror, the ad emphasised physical appearance rather than health”.
It also noted that while the ad “did not include a named POM”, in providing “a link to a landing page that featured a named POM, the paid-for Facebook ad advertised POMs”.
Chequp, however, said that it believed the ad “did not give the impression that people of a healthy weight should try to lose weight”, adding that it was “intended to make consumers feel heard and supported”.
Read more: ASA ‘confident’ it can tackle online POM advertising
The online pharmacy said that “through research” it had learned “many customers were expressing a desire not to be ‘the biggest person in the room’” and it explained that the ad “reflected genuine consumer concerns and was intended to be relatable”.
It also said that the ad “did not include accusatory or denigratory language, which would make people feel they had to lose weight or that being overweight was generally undesirable”.
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A spokesperson for Chequp told C+D it takes its responsibilities “extremely seriously” and “moved quickly to address the ASA’s concerns”.
“As the ASA’s ruling makes clear this was a complex case regarding an advert that was used over the summer, before the Committees of Advertising Practice issued new guidance,” they said.
“We are already complying with this guidance and the advert is no longer being used,” they continued, adding that Chequp is “fully committed to championing best practice and supporting a robust, compliant and ethical approach to advertising in the health and wellness industry”.
Exploited new mothers
The ASA’s ruling against MedExpress focused on a “paid-for Instagram ad” from June where a video included text saying “I wish I knew sooner that I could lose post-baby weight with a medicated weight loss treatment from MedExpress”.
It found the ad “encouraged new mothers to prioritise losing weight by using weight-loss medication, exploited their insecurities about body image and perpetuated pressures for them to conform to body image stereotypes”.
The ad was also “irresponsible” because weight-loss medications “carry warnings for people who are breastfeeding”, it added, noting it also “included a harmful gender stereotype”.
Read more: Pharmacies must ‘immediately’ remove weight-loss ads, regulators warn
The ASA also found that while the ad “did not include a named POM”, it considered that “in providing a link to a landing page that featured a named POM, the paid-for Instagram ad advertised POMs”.
MedExpress, however, argued that the ad was intended “to support women who had given birth who may be struggling with their weight-loss journey”.
It did not “expressly suggest that weight loss was a priority after birth and did not include any negative connotations about baby weight”, the online pharmacy said, adding that there had been “no intention to use gender stereotypes in the ad”.
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It also added that the ad “made no reference to any POMs and included text stating that all medication would be prescribed subject to an assessment by a certificated healthcare professional to confirm a consumer’s suitability for a chosen treatment”.
MedExpress told C+D that “since the advert mentioned in the ASA ruling ran, we have strengthened our internal sign-off processes, introduced additional sensitivity checks, and enhanced advertising governance across all conditions and categories we serve”.
“This ensures that all MedExpress communications are developed with appropriate care, reflect the needs of different customer groups, and meet ASA guidelines,” it said, adding that MedExpress remains “committed to responsible marketing and to upholding the high standards [its] patients expect”.
Skinny jabs
The final ASA ruling against WLO Ltd – trading as SkinnyJab – focused on two TikTok posts, the company’s website, and an Instagram post, and challenged whether the term “skinny jab” breached the code because it “promoted POMs to the public”.
It found that “consumers were likely to understand ‘skinny jab’ to mean a weight-loss treatment that was administered by injection”.
And it said it “understood that all injectable forms of weight-loss medication were POMs”, thus concluding that the ads “promoted a POM to the public”.
Read more: Weight loss: GPhC online pharmacy crackdown has ‘full’ DH support
The online pharmacy, however, stressed that their social media content “was intended to be an educational and informative resource regarding weight loss medication” and “was not paid-for or sponsored advertising”.
SkinnyJab’s chief executive, Caroline Balazs, told C+D it “acknowledges the ASA’s ruling” and recognises the ASA’s “conclusion that the posts constituted marketing communications”.
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“We have taken immediate steps to remove the content and are conducting a full review of our branding, terminology, and communications to ensure all future activity complies fully with advertising and medicines regulations,” she said.
And Balazs added that SkinnyJab “remains committed to operating responsibly, transparently, and within the regulatory framework, delivering clinician-led services with patient safety at the forefront”.
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The ASA said that it is “well aware of the scale of the problem here” but added that by working with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) it is “continuing to take a concerted and robust approach to ensure advertisers understand the rules”.
It comes after the ASA published nine rulings in July against companies found to be illegally advertising weight loss jabs online and on social media, clarifying that “indirectly” advertising weight loss POMs is banned.
