Navigating the Uncharted Risks of Covert Advertising in Influencer Marketing

Nowadays one of the more commonly used types of advertisement is through the use of influencers by brands on social media. There is no doubt about social media's – and therefore the influencers' – potential to reach a wide range of global consumers. Accordingly, such reach makes this global, newly-emerging group of tastemakers very valuable to brands.However, there is a catch: when content about a product is generated by influencers e.g. on their Instagram account, how do the consumers know whether the influencer genuinely used and liked that product, or whether there is a commercial relationship between the brand and the influencer, and such relationship is the real reason the influencer is posting about that product?