Are DJ Khaled’s Snapchat Stories Illegal?
2016 is undoubtedly going to be a huge year for Snapchat. Marketers have flocked to the social platform in droves and there are new celebrities making the move as well.
But none is more notable than DJ Khaled’s rise to Snapchat stardom.
A famous music producer who rubs elbows with the likes of Chris Brown, Snoop Dogg and Diddy, Khaled has taken to Snapchat to share his “keys” to success and documenting his day-to-day life.
But if you’ve been paying attention to his stories, you probably have noticed how repetitive they’ve become. Even I’ll admit that I loved his Snapchat stories — at first.
Due to the repetitive nature of his snaps, I started to take notice of things I just kept seeing over and over again. Mainly, I couldn’t help but notice how many of his snaps were dedicated to highlighting Cîroc Vodka.
When I started to take notice of this, I became highly suspicious. But it wasn’t these mentions of Cîroc that had me suspicious. DJ Khaled had a recent story that made me question if he was engaging in unethical marketing tactics with an up and coming dating app.
Cîroc Vodka Brand Ambassadors
For those not familiar with Cîroc, they are a vodka brand owned by Diageo — one of the biggest alcohol conglomerates in the world — that was tanking in sales just a decade ago. Then in 2007, Diddy signed on as a brand ambassador and through clever positioning, Cîroc is one of the biggest vodka brands today.
But this isn’t news. Hip hop and endorsing alcohol brands simply just go hand-in-hand due to the lavish lifestyle often idolized by rappers. Because of who Diddy is, it’s only natural that he was able to recruit other big names in the music industry.
In fact, Twitter uses a campaign by Cîroc as a success story case study to appeal to big brands for using Twitter’s ad platform. In that case study, they actually reference that one of the ambassadors includes DJ Khaled himself:
Produced and distributed by spirits company Diageo, Ciroc Ultra-Premium (@Ciroc) is one of the world’s only vodkas derived entirely from grapes. @Ciroc works with a variety of lifestyle ambassadors that include world-renowned influencers like Sean Combs (@iamdiddy) and DJ Khaled (@djkhaled) with strong Twitter followings.
Which would ultimately explain why I saw stuff like this from DJ Khaled’s Snapchat —
I mean really. Many of these snaps explicitly say to “enjoy responsibly,” or “for my 21+ fans.” That right there means he was probably given guidelines by Cîroc to comply with regulatory concerns.
Which brings to me to my primary issue.
FTC Celebrity Endorsements
Not many people know this, but the FTC is typically responsible for keeping advertisers in check. That’s why whenever you’re served an ad on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc., the ads have to clearly state that what you’re looking at is an ad. (“Sponsored,” “Ad”)
But influencers and celebrity endorsements? That’s when things start to get a little muddy.
According this statement from the FTC website, “…if there is a connection between the endorser and the marketer of a product that would affect how people evaluate the endorsement, it should be disclosed.”
To be clear, these are not necessarily regulations. More of a guide, these are principles that advertisers should follow. Should they choose not to follow them, the FTC would launch an investigation to see if something fishy is happening.
In defense of DJ Khaled, any reasonable person would probably assume that his connection to Cîroc is due to his relationship with other music industry giants.
What threw up a red flag for me was when DJ Khaled recently “discovered” the Bumble dating app.
DJ Khaled Talks Bumble
In a recent Snapchat story from DJ Khaled, we see the usual of Khaled walking around his mansion, eating egg whites, and spending time in his personal studio.
Then for some reason when talking to one of his cronies, several of the next snaps go into how his buddy is going to “find his future” on Bumble.
Bumble is a direct competitor to dating app Tinder, in which users will swipe left of right to find matches between other users. The twist here is that only women are allowed to initiate conversation.
Here are some of the snaps:
You may be thinking this is harmless, that he only talked about Bumble because it piqued his interest. And it very well may be harmless.
But just before this series of snaps, he shared a gift he received of a box of “bless up” and key shaped chocolates.
In the middle of the box, you’ll notice 3 chocolates shaped like a honeycomb.
Probably nothing, right?
Unless of course you think about the fact that Bumble’s logo is a stylized honeycomb. (Bumble, bumblebee)
And their replies use this consistent kind of branding:
This may seem to be playing out more like a crockpot conspiracy theory, but the fact that he calls the box of chocolates a “secret gift” is just too suspicious.
The business goals of Cîroc and Bumble differ in that the dating app’s primary objective is to score more downloads. So don’t be surprised if there are reports in a rise in app downloads over the next couple of weeks for Bumble.
If I had to guess, this won’t be the last time we see Bumble talked about by DJ Khaled on Snapchat.
A Plea to Snapchat
Listen, I love Snapchat.
But without clearly stating a relationship between DJ Khaled and Bumble, the chances of misleading people is just way too high. Not to mention that doing this on a platform where content doesn’t live forever can be easily exploited for marketing purposes.
So please, Snapchat. Don’t let marketers ruin what you’ve worked so hard to create.
