“It’s really hard when you’re one of few people who is actually trying their best to be honest,” says online content creator Bri Burke Carroll.
“There are some people who I follow and everything they post is sponsored, every single thing, and a lot of the time, they’re not admitting to it or being honest about it.”
The link between influencers and businesses in Ireland, particularly new or trending restaurants and cafes, can be mutually beneficial, according to several businesses that spoke to The Irish Times. However, the nature of this relationship has bred a system of gifts or free meals in exchange for promotional content which, according to those in the influencing industry, is rarely labelled as such, as required by advertising rules.
This lack of transparency among some high-profile content creators has led other influencers – such as Burke Carroll – to make honesty a selling point. In doing so, however, they can receive backlash and threats of legal action from restaurants that receive less favourable reviews.
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Some restaurants will offer thousands of euro in exchange for “high score” reviews. But Paul Micheau says he can’t be tempted – the @paul_isitworthit account he runs with fellow Dubliner John McGarry is billed as “Ireland’s most honest food reviewer”.
“If we wanted to, we could be making serious money from these restaurants with the amount of offers we get,” says Micheau.
“We’ve been offered €1,000 to review food and we’ve been offered three or four times that just to give a certain score.”
McGarry adds: “The only thing we have is our word and if we lose that, we’re nothing.”
Due to Micheau becoming more recognisable as the on-screen reviewer, they have resorted to McGarry, who films the content, collecting the food to ensure they receive no special treatment.
The 28-year-olds have amassed almost 80,000 followers and subscribers across various platforms. They said they started the enterprise because they were not only “sick and tired” of seeing dishonest content raving about meals which, on the surface, looked less than appetising, but also frustrated the influencers in question were not labelling the content appropriately as ads.
They often receive offers of free meals to review restaurants or takeaways and decline before subsequently seeing other influencers reviewing the same businesses without labelling the content as ads.
“Engagement on videos take a huge hit when they’re labelled correctly as most of the general public will immediately swipe off once they see it,” Micheau says.
“I think we have a bigger impact because people feel they can genuinely trust our scores. A lot of times if we give a good score, our followers will send pictures of the takeaway or restaurant packed with queues out the door,” he adds.
Burke Carroll, whose handle @lesbcookin has gained more than 40,000 followers between Instagram and TikTok, says despite guidelines for influencers from the Advertisting Standards Authority (ASA) being clear, “it’s just not being enforced”.
She describes the majority of content online now as “promotional”, saying some creators “purely exist for profit” making “shiny, positive content in order to be given the freebies and the invites”.
“That’s their sole purpose and I just feel there’s no integrity in that,” she says, adding: “Being bought for the price of a Chinese takeaway just doesn’t sit right with me so that’s probably why I do what I do.”
Many influencers choose not to adhere to ASA guidelines, the 33-year-old from Kiltimagh, Co Mayo, says, due to the belief that ad labels will drive down views.
“It’s happening all the time, and I know that because if a PR agency comes to me and asks me to do something and I can’t, all of a sudden, I see a load of content creators engaging in the thing I was invited to but they haven’t labelled it.” Agencies also have a “real responsibility of enforcing the guidelines and standards set”, she says.
Others “sneak” the ad label within a barrage of other hashtags, she continues, despite being obliged to place the ad label at the beginning of the caption, as per ASA guidelines.
“Naturally,” those who receive gifts will be biased towards the free product or service, she says, adding: “If you don’t inform them of that, you’re lying to them essentially.”
The ASA said last year it had written to 150 influencers who have consistently been in breach of guidelines in relation to commercial content. It added persistent offenders would be named and shamed and could face fines.
Burke Carroll, who creates content as a hobby, has “never made any money, ever” from her online content and “runs at a loss”.
She accepts some gifts or invites, though estimates that about 85 per cent of her content is based on experiences fully paid for by her.
Free meals from restaurants constitute gifts, while a restaurant asking her to come for a meal in return for a review constitutes an ad, she explains.
When she does receive vouchers for meals, she still does “not hide away from the negative aspects”, she says.
“My content isn’t promotional, it’s just my opinion and that’s what I think people value, I’m not going to say everything’s brilliant or pretend it was if it wasn’t,” she says.
However, her honesty can come at a cost.
“I’ve only ever gotten backlash from men, and it’s always been in a really misogynistic and sexist tone, I have never had a female chef or business owner attack me,” she says.
[ Influencers warned by Revenue over fully declaring incomeOpens in new window ]
Another practice within the sector of influencing, she says, is requesting “freebies”.
On several occasions, newer influencers have mistakenly included her in “mass messages” sent to food businesses across Dublin seeking freebies, and in these messages, they offer to “promote” the business in return.
“It’s wild out there, the way people behave, and the entitlement,” she says.
Although influencers seeking free food from New York-style pizza slice shop Bambino was more prevalent when it first opened in Dublin city, it appears to have waned in frequency, according to co-owner Shane Windrim.
Bambino quickly became one of several viral spots online, which often become targeted for “collaborations” or free meals.
“Not to say it doesn’t happen any more, but I have a feeling that a lot of these people might have gotten the hint. I assumed a lot of them were chancing their arm, offering exposure but it just sounded like a free lunch,” he says.
[ Bambino review: Seriously good New York-style pizza by the sliceOpens in new window ]
Bambino still receives requests for freebies “every now and again” from influencers offering promotional content in return, and while Windrim might consider the practice “cheeky”, or a case of someone “chancing their arm”, other food businesses could find it “offensive and disrespectful”.
“I think it does piss some people off. It’s probably cheapening the thing that they might have put their life’s work into and could be seen by a lot of people as kind of disrespectful and I completely understand that,” he says.
