The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has issued a ruling against aesthetic treatment comparison site Glowday, after it posted content advertising botulinum toxin to the public.
The ASA found that in September 2022, the site posted an ad promoting ‘The Best Botox in London’, linking to pages of aesthetic practitioners who performed toxin injections.
Another post was entitled ‘Back to School Botox’, which featured an image of a woman and a child, with the caption, ‘Booking a back to school treatment for you? Find a clinic near you who is trained, checked, insured and qualified on Glowday.’
The ASA ruled that botulinum toxin is a prescription-only medication (POM) that cannot be promoted to the public, hence Glowday was in breach of these guidelines. It also ruled that the advertisements focused on mothers seeking anti-ageing treatments were exploiting women’s insecurities, and were ‘irresponsible and harmful.’
In response to the ruling, founder of Glowday Hannah Russell said, “We disagree that we were advertising Botox, as consumers can neither purchase or book Botox on Glowday. The wider issues that need to be addressed by the ASA is the obvious flagrant breach of advertising standards by key industry players.”
The site has been warned not to advertise POMs going forward.
The full report is available to access here.
