It’s been something that more celebrities are getting accused of these days: Promoting a product or company without letting people know they’ve been paid for it.
The latest celeb to fall under this accusation is Sean “Diddy” Combs,” because a group called Truth in Advertising said he marketed Cîroc and promoted it on social media without letting people know he was a paid employee.
The consumer watchdog group also said Diddy made over 100 posts about the vodka brand that weren’t labeled as ads like they should’ve been, which is a major violation of Federal Trade Commission rules.
At least for now, it seems Truth in Advertising is honing in on the Cîroc brand, because they’ve located over 1,700 Instagram posts from 50 different celebrities and tastemakers. Plus, they’ve identified more than a third of those posts have come from Diddy, Cîroc‘s brand manager.
French Montana and Bow Wow were also named in the accusation, as was supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio and according to the watchdog group they’ve “failed to reveal their material connection to the alcohol brand in a clear and conspicuous manner in violation of FTC law.”
Earlier this year, Truth in Advertising came after DJ Khaled for promoting Cîroc without letting people know he was paid for it. He’s since added the hashtag “#Ad” to more than 150 posts about Cîroc, while removing over a a dozen old ads from twitter.
At this time, neither Diddy, French, Bow Wow or Ambrosio have responded to the group’s accusation and more celebrities may be named in the future.
