A social media post featuring Love Island’s Luke Mabbott promoting clothes from Boohoo breached advertising rules, a watchdog has said.

Mabbott, a finalist on the ITV dating show in 2020, posted a video of himself on his TikTok account wearing two outfits.

The caption alongside the video, posted on November 4 2020, said “Which look do you prefer” and “Outfit from @boohooman #boohooman”, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said.

A complainant challenged whether the post was a marketing communication without being obviously identifiable as such.

The ASA upheld the complaint and told Boohoo.com UK Ltd and Mabbott to ensure that in future their ads were “obviously identifiable as marketing communications”, by including a clear and prominent identifier such as “#ad”.

Boohoo.com UK Ltd (Boohoo) said that BoohooMAN and Mabbott had a contractual agreement in place, which included an obligation to ensure all social media posts were obviously identifiable to consumers as an ad, the ASA said.

Upon notice of the complaint, the ASA said Boohoo contacted Mabbott’s management to remind him of his contractual obligations.

They said that Mabbott agreed to amend the ad, to ensure that it was properly disclosed as such, and confirmed any future posts would be posted in accordance with their contractual agreement and the ASA’s guidelines.

Mabbott said that the absence of an appropriate label was an oversight and that they would make similar posts obviously identifiable in future, the watchdog said.

The ASA ruling said: “We assessed the post as it would have appeared in-feed on TikTok and considered that there was nothing in its content, such as ‘#ad’ placed upfront, that made clear to those viewing it that it was an ad.

“We therefore concluded that the post was not obviously identifiable as a marketing communication and as such breached the Code.”