ASA bans Huel and Zoe ads for failing to disclose links to Steven Bartlett

Adverts for nutrition brands Zoe and Huel featuring Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett have been banned for failing to disclose their commercial relationship with the celebrity entrepreneur.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found the ads, seen on Facebook in February, “omitted material information” about their links to Bartlett, who published the best-selling book The Diary Of A CEO – 33 Laws For Business And Life and hosted the podcast The Diary Of A CEO.

Bartlett is an investor in Zoe and a director at Huel.

The ASA found the two adverts for Huel and one for Zoe were misleading or likely to mislead consumers.

The advert for Zoe, which offers health testing and dietary advice services, featured an image of Bartlett with a Zoe patch on his arm, with text in the form of a quote from Bartlett which stated: “If you haven’t tried Zoe yet, give it a shot. It might just change your life.”

Defending the ad, Zoe said the average consumer would understand that there was a commercial relationship if a celebrity appeared in an ad for a brand, and argued that the consumer did not need to know the exact nature of that relationship.

Zoe said that if it was obliged to include a specific disclosure about the nature of Bartlett’s status as an investor in Zoe, this would have a wider impact on other brands and influencers.

Huel, known for its vitamin-enriched food items – whose ads featured Bartlett stating that its Daily Greens powder was the “best product” it had released, argued that 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.

This expectation removed the need for the commercial relationship to be explicitly stated, Huel claimed.

However the ASA found that many consumers were unlikely to understand from the ads that Bartlett had a financial interest in Huel’s performance.

It said: “We considered that Bartlett’s directorship was material to consumers’ understanding of the ads, and so relevant for them in making an informed decision about the advertised product.

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

In relation to Zoe, the regulator said: “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.”

The regulator also banned a podcast advert for Huel in 2022, in which Bartlett said during a segment on his highly successful The Diary Of A CEO show that he had “become hooked on” an iced coffee caramel-flavour Huel drink.

Huel, Zoe and Bartlett have been approached for comment.