The UK ad code treats a vague hashtag as no disclosure at all

The revenue mechanism

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority enforces the Committee of Advertising Practice's Code, and Section 2 of the current Non-Broadcast Code, described here as retrieved on 16 September 2026 since the CAP updates it over time, sets the recognisability standard underlying UK sponsorship and affiliate disclosure practice. Rule 2.1 states that marketing communications must be, in the rule's own words, obviously identifiable as such. For a publisher earning revenue from sponsored posts, affiliate links, or influencer partnerships aimed at UK readers, this rule is the operative standard a disclosure is measured against, independent of FTC-style guidance that applies only in the United States; a UK-facing publisher needs both, and they do not use identical language.

What the documents show

The Code also sets three related rules: Rule 2.2 requires unsolicited marketing emails to be identifiable without opening them; Rule 2.3 bars falsely claiming to act as an ordinary consumer and requires commercial intent to be clear where not obvious from context; and Rule 2.4 requires advertorial content to be labelled, giving advertisement feature as an example. The ASA's own guidance on social media and influencer marketing adds examples from published rulings: a bare brand tag has repeatedly been found insufficient alone, including rulings against Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe in December 2022 and Prettylittlething.com in April 2021, and labels such as sponsored, gifted, in association with, or a brand-ambassador hashtag have also been ruled inadequate, including a Britvic Soft Drinks ruling from November 2015.

The assumptions exposed

Section 2 states a general principle, not a fixed word list, which is why the guidance page exists to interpret it through rulings; relying only on the four rules without checking those rulings risks assuming sponsored is safe when the guidance states the ASA has found it too open to interpretation. These are rulings against specific advertisers in specific contexts, so a label found insufficient once is strong evidence, not an automatic determination, for other uses elsewhere. The Code section carries no visible revision date on the retrieved page, which is why this entry treats it as a living document.

What to check before you rely on it

This is an editorial checklist, not legal advice: confirm sponsored and affiliate content uses an explicit term such as ad, advert, or advertisement feature rather than an ambiguous term like sponsored or collab; confirm any hashtag-only disclosure is not the sole identifier, since the guidance describes tag-only disclosure as insufficient in multiple rulings; and confirm disclosure wording is checked periodically against current published rulings, since acceptable practice is established case by case.

• Does the disclosure use a term the ASA has explicitly accepted, rather than one it has previously ruled ambiguous?
• Would the commercial relationship be obvious to a reader who saw only the post itself, without other context?
• Has the site checked its current disclosure wording against recent ASA rulings rather than relying on older guidance?

The Code's principle is simple to state and harder to apply consistently across platforms, which is why the ASA maintains a running body of rulings rather than a static word list.