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Social Marketing – Floyd ‘Money’ ‘Marketing’ Mayweather
After his defeat of Manny Pacquiao in which he was paid $1 million each by Burger King, Fan
Duel and Hublot, Floyd Mayweather posted the following photo on his Instagram account
with the caption “I just touched down in Atlanta, GA on Air Mayweather. No luggage is
required… just my Diamond Hermès HAC 50 Crocodile money bag…”.
Image source: https://instagram.com/floydmayweather/
Initially, I thought that this was just a photo of Floyd being Floyd, i.e. flaunting his wealth
with his private jet. However, stating the model of the Hermès bag makes it seem as if this is
more of an advertisement for the luxury fashion house, rather than just a simple photo.
With this in mind, I wanted to take a closer look at the need for transparency in social media
advertising using the ‘UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct
Marketing’ (the ‘Code’) as created by the Committee for Advertising Practice and
administered by the Advertising Standards Authority.
Toeing the line
The purpose of the Code is to benefit consumers, society and businesses. It ensures that the
public is not mistreated and fills in any gaps left open by legislation. To this end, the UK Code
sets out guidelines for businesses to follow and to essentially regulate themselves without
the fear of costly litigation.
The Code states that ‘[t]he central principle for all marketing communications is that they
should be legal, decent, honest and truthful.’ There therefore needs to be transparency to
allow the audience to discern what is and is not a piece of marketing. Hence, any marketing
communications must be ‘obviously identifiable as such’.
This is where Mayweather’s Instagram photo falls short. The detailed description of the bag
suggests that this is more than just an image for social media, but it does not specify
whether or not this is part of a marketing campaign for Hermès – is Mayweather simply just
showing what he owns as he has done so with other items from the same brand or has it
now evolved into promotional content?

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How to have posted the photo in accordance with the UK Code
There is a difference between user generated content and user generated content for the
purpose of advertising. Therefore, if this is a piece of marketing, as I think it likely to be, the
Code dictates that Mayweather should have indicated that he was being sponsored by
Hermès to post the photo. In recent years, guidelines have been set for UK celebrities to
inform their Twitter followers with a specific hashtag, such as ‘#ad’, whenever they are
advertising something. This would have been a method for Mayweather to illustrate such a
commercial relationship.
But with as much brand equity as Mayweather has, would he have been willing to dilute his
captions and personality?
For example, Mayweather signed a shoe deal with Reebok in 2009 which was not renewed
in 2010. The story goes that, just three weeks after signing, Mayweather spent thousands in
a Nike store and posted photos of the goods on his social media accounts in contravention
of his shoe deal – Reebok obviously expressed their displeasure and Mayweather opted to
repay Reebok instead of diluting his personality. On the other hand, in his post-fight
interview on May 2, Floyd thanked Hublot for their sponsorship.
Maybe the reason why he acknowledged Hublot and not Reebok is because of the difference
in the type of goods he was promoting and the level of difficulty with which either sponsor
could be replaced. Based on this rationale, it follows that Mayweather could also be willing
to mention Hermès’ sponsorship especially given suggestions that the bag in the photo is
worth $150,000. However, he has not done so in past photos with Hermès products, nor has
he done so since.
Hermès also have a responsibility to the public to be transparent about any sponsorship.
This is exactly what Hublot did on the day of the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, by publishing a
statement that they had signed a ‘knockout’ partnership with the fighter. On the possibility
that the Instagram photo is a piece of marketing, a similar statement should have been
made, not least for Hermès’ own marketing purposes but also to be in line with the Code.
The future
If you have ever been on Mayweather’s Instagram or seen any of his photos, you know that
he often poses with high-end goods. In respect of this, it is often unclear what is and is not a
piece of third party marketing and so an indication of sponsorship would do much to
increase transparency.
For more information, please do not hesitate to contact me.