#KathrynSignedItOff… But should it be #ad?

M&S product developer Kathryn Turner puts her connection with the retailer front and centre. But as employees increasingly become brand ambassadors, when does talking about your employer’s products become advertising, and is saying who you work for enough?

Back in January 2024, we looked at the rules governing influencer marketing in From Villa to Viral.

Almost three years on, the lines between employee, brand ambassador and influencer have become even more blurred.

And there may be no better example than Kathryn Turner, Director of Product Development at M&S Food.

If you spend any time on TikTok or Instagram, there is a good chance the algorithm has introduced you to her. Since launching her TikTok account in May, Kathryn Turner has amassed more than 320,000 followers and 3.7 million likes, with many individual videos attracting more than one million views.

Her influence has become a phenomenon in its own right. Commentators are already referring to “the Kathryn Turner effect”, while #KathrynSignedItOff has become a recurring feature of her product content. Consumers have even produced their own content declaring “God bless Kathryn Turner our queen”.

This is no longer simply an employee occasionally talking about her day job.

The commercial influence is difficult to ignore and the timing is particularly interesting.

M&S’s latest half-year results reported Food sales growth of 13.9%, continuing a strong period for the Food business.

We obviously cannot attribute that growth to Kathryn Turner. There are many factors behind the performance of a business of M&S’s scale.

But equally, it would be artificial to pretend her influence is commercially insignificant.

National publications are now producing shopping guides based on Kathryn Turner’s recommendations, she has become enough of a cultural reference point to inspire Halloween costumes, and her product videos regularly generate very significant audiences.

According to The Guardian, Kathryn Turner is also part of a wider M&S social media strategy which champions around 100 of its own employees on TikTok, rather than relying solely on traditional influencers.

That is perhaps the most interesting part.

What makes Kathryn Turner effective is precisely what separates her from the traditional influencer.

She isn’t being presented as an outsider who happens to love M&S.

She is M&S.

She has worked there for decades. She develops the products. She knows how they came about. And when she tells consumers she has “signed off” a product, that expertise gives the recommendation an authenticity which would be difficult to recreate through a conventional influencer campaign.

Commercially, that is extremely powerful.

Legally, it raises a much more difficult question.

At what point does the employee become the advert?

Employment control isn’t necessarily advertising control. For conventional influencer advertorial content, the familiar CAP Code analysis looks at whether there is payment or another reciprocal arrangement and sufficient editorial control.

The employee scenario doesn’t fit as neatly into that model.

Kathryn Turner’s commercial connection to M&S is obvious. She works for the business and makes that clear in her content. And we would reasonably expect a business of M&S’s size to have employment terms and policies regulating matters such as social media use, confidentiality, reputation and employee conduct.

That gives M&S a degree of control over its employees, but employment control and editorial control are not necessarily the same thing.

There is a difference between:

“Don’t disclose confidential information or bring M&S into disrepute on social media.”

and:

“Feature this product, communicate these messages, post at this time and let us approve the content before it goes live.”

We do not know what arrangements sit behind Kathryn Turner’s content and should not speculate that M&S approves or directs particular posts.

But the closer an employer gets to selecting products, prescribing messages, setting posting expectations, approving content or retaining rights to amend it, the harder it becomes to characterise that content as simply an employee independently talking about their working life.

And that matters.

“I work for M&S” versus “This is an Ad”

Section 2 of the CAP Code requires marketing communications to be obviously identifiable as such. The ASA’s current guidance stresses that consumers should not have to work out for themselves whether they are engaging with advertising.

So, let’s assume an employer is sufficiently involved in a particular employee post for that content to constitute advertising. Does the employee still need to say #ad if they have already made their employment completely obvious?

There is a strong common-sense argument against it.

If Kathryn Turner introduces herself as Director of Product Development at M&S Food and then shows you the latest M&S products, nobody is seriously going to mistake her for an independent consumer reviewer.

Her connection to the brand could scarcely be clearer. But that isn’t necessarily the end of the matter. There is an important distinction between:

“I work for M&S” tells you who I am.

and

“ad” tells you what this content is.

The first discloses the relationship.

The second identifies the commercial nature of the communication.

Where a post is genuinely independent employee content, that distinction may go no further. But where the employer has requested, directed, approved or otherwise exercised meaningful editorial control over promotional content, our view is that relying solely on the employee’s job title creates unnecessary risk.

If it is an advert, say it is an advert.

Should employees use #ad?

Not every time they mention their employer.

An employee celebrating a successful product launch, sharing their working day or independently talking about something they helped create does not automatically become an influencer advert simply because they receive a salary and are subject to a social media policy.

But the position changes as the company’s involvement in the content increases.

Businesses using employees as part of their social strategy should ask:

• Who decided that the content should be created?
• Who selected the product being featured?
• Is the employee working to particular messages or talking points?
• Are there specific brand guidelines for the content?
• Is there an expectation around frequency or timing?
• Does the business approve posts before publication?
• Can it require amendments or removal?
• Does the business amplify or repurpose the content through its own marketing channels?

The more those answers point back to the employer, the stronger the argument becomes that this isn’t simply employee advocacy. It is marketing.

And where that line is crossed, we think a clear ad disclosure is the sensible position.

The real lesson from the Kathryn Turner effect

The bigger lesson for businesses isn’t really about one hashtag.

It is that employees can now become exceptionally valuable marketing assets.

Kathryn Turner’s success demonstrates why. Her account combines expertise, personality and insider access in a way that conventional influencer marketing struggles to manufacture.

Her success has also reached far beyond her own account. The Guardian reported that M&S’s employee-led social strategy involves around 100 employees, while Kathryn Turner herself has become an unlikely social-media personality with a substantial following of her own.

That creates opportunities, but it also creates legal questions which a traditional social media policy may not answer.

Businesses embracing employee advocacy should therefore think about:

• what employees can post independently;
• when employees are creating content on behalf of the business;
• editorial control and approval processes;
• when #ad or another clear disclosure is required;
• confidentiality and commercially sensitive information;
• ownership and reuse of employee-created content;
• image, name and likeness rights;
• ownership of social media accounts; and
• what happens to the content and audience when the employee leaves.

The Kathryn Turner phenomenon shows just how commercially powerful an employee’s voice can become.

The legal question shouldn’t therefore be dismissed simply because everyone knows she works for M&S.

That tells us about her relationship with the brand.

Where the business is controlling the content, the more important question is whether consumers also understand that the content itself is advertising.

And as more businesses look for their own Kathryn Turner, that distinction is likely to become increasingly important. Employees increasingly become public faces of the products and brands they work for, that is a distinction businesses cannot afford to overlook.