Rai, hidden advertising during Sanremo triggers the Agcom fine

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The Sanremo of the great audiences of the record collection in terms of advertising, will also be the one remembered for the “secret advertising”. With a fine from Agcom (170 thousand euros) combined with the recall for what happened on the occasion of Blanco’s performance, accompanied by the destruction of the prestigious flowers of Sanremo and the stage transformed into a battlefield. “The violations ascertained concern five episodes of failure to indicate the insertion of advertising messages and the case of hidden advertising of the social network Instagram and the profile of the conductor Amadeus”, reads the press release from the Authority.

In the viewfinder, therefore, both the tout court promotion of the platform and the boost to the profile of the conductor and artistic director, opened live on stage with the complicity of Chiara Ferragni and shot towards a million followers in a few days. Conducts evidently deemed of medium gravity by the offices of the guarantee body: this is demonstrated by the size of the fine, which is somewhere between the 10,000 and 250,000 euros envisaged by the legislation.

The Sanremo 2023 Festival was immediately targeted by Agcom, with the initiation of a sanctioning procedure in relation to hidden advertising and Instagram. The social network, in the edition of the festival staged in February, was at the center of a series of interludes that particularly involved Amadeus and Chiara Ferragni. An investigation had also been opened on the “Blanco case”: the singer, a guest at the Ariston, went into a rage by kicking the flowers on stage. No sanctioning investigation had been decided for the sexy curtain between Rosa Chemical and Fedez on the final evening.

Now the decision of the Authority, with the fine for hidden advertising and the recall for the exhibition of Blanco, again with a majority, with the no of commissioner Giomi and the abstention of the president Giacomo Lasorella. The Council of the Authority has called Rai for the unscheduled performance of Blanco, «for the lack of respect for human dignity and the instigation to violence and for not having complied with the obligations established by the current service, promotion and dissemination of contents that enhance the principles of protection of the legality and dignity of the person, as set out in the current service contract”.

As for the penalty for hidden advertising, Commissioner Giomi upheld her no, signaling “perplexity also on the merits: why should Rai and Instagram have agreed on such a risky form of advertising, which complicates the payment methods, instead of resorting to a explicit agreement? It also seems unlikely that a giant of Instagram’s reach wanted to resort to Rai to promote itself, because it is not with TV advertising that social media expand its user base, while I imagine that Rai used Instagram for the sole purpose to bring the Festival to young and very young audiences, 80% of whom use this social network».