Chiara Ferragni, Italy's most famous social media influencer, was charged with a million euro fraud. According to the prosecutor, he implied that he was donating money to children's cancer research.
Italy is tightening its laws regulating advertising on social media due to the “Christmas cake scandal” of the other year.
Accounts with more than a million followers must clearly mark paid content as advertising, Italian communications authorities announced on Thursday. A fine of up to 600,000 euros can be imposed for failure to comply with the order.
Earlier this week it was reported that Italy's most famous social media influencer Chiara Ferragni and manager of a bakery business Alessandra Balocco are charged with fraud.
Ferragni has 29.4 million followers on Instagram alone.
Chiara Ferragni posted a Christmas photo on Instagram.
In the background is the Christmas cake scandal that started last year.
In autumn 2022, the bakery company Balocco wanted to accelerate Pandora-selling their baked goods. It hired Ferragni to advertise specially priced “pink Pandoras”.
Pandoro is a dry cake originating from Verona, which is one of the traditional delicacies on the Christmas table in Italy.
The price of Ferragni's Christmas cake was almost triple. A normal pandoro cost 3.70 euros at Market, Ferragni's cake more than nine euros.
However, the deal went through. From the ads, I got the impression that the entire profit from the cake sales will be donated to a children's hospital in Turin for cancer research.
In reality, the Balocco bakery had donated 50,000 euros to the hospital before the start of the campaign, but neither the bakery nor Ferragnica paid the hospital a cent for the cake sales.
Ferragni made more than a million euros with the cake campaign.
The door of a store belonging to Chiara Ferragni's clothing chain in Corso Como.
Nearly after a year of investigations, in December 2023 Ferragni was fined one million euros and the bakery manager Alessandra Balocco was fined 420,000 euros. So this week they were also charged with fraud.
Ferragni denies intentional misrepresentation. In December, he released a video in which he almost tearfully assured that it was a misunderstanding. Ferragni also promised to donate one million euros to the hospital.
Newspaper Il Messageron based on the e-mail messages read, the bakery company was already worried during the campaign that Ferragni's press release referred too directly to the hospital donation.
The organization representing consumers is now demanding the return of the more expensive Ferragni cake and the market price 3.70 euro cake in a class action. It would cost Ferragni and Balocco another 1.65 million euros.
Chiara Ferragni, 36, started in 2009 as a fashion blogger. He was already the highest earning influencer in 2017, charging 12,000 euros for his social media ads.
Ferragni, who studied law, already expanded his business to clothing and cosmetics companies in the last decade. His assets are estimated at around 40 million euros.
Chiara Ferragni, who worked as a model, was also photographed at Milan Fashion Week in February 2022.
in Europe similar laws have recently been enacted to restrict social media advertising.
France obliges influencers to agree on their advertising commissions in writing. Advertising of tobacco and cosmetic surgery will be completely banned, and the regulation of advertisements in the financial sector will be clarified.
Violation of the rules can result in a fine of hundreds of thousands of euros and even an absolute prison sentence.
In France, the tightening of the laws is based, among other things, on publications by star influencers about cryptocurrencies, which were not marked as advertisements.
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