Last Friday, December 15, the Italian Competition and Market Guarantee Authority (AGCOM) announced that the companies of the popular influencer Chiara Ferragni were going to receive a sanction of more than one million euros for a “practice.” incorrect commercial” together with the food company Balocco.
As revealed in the statement by the entity, both the content creator and the food company ”intimated with their advertising campaign that consumers when purchasing a ”pandoro” (traditional Christmas sweet) from Balocco with the name Ferragni, would contribute to a donation to the Queen Margaret Hospital of Turin to acquire new machinery for the therapeutic treatment of children with osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma.”
This donation was made months before by the company Balocco with a total amount of 50,000 euros, while the content creator’s companies had raised more than one million euros with the campaign. In addition, the manufacturer of the Christmas product must also pay a fine of 420,000 euros.
After two days of absolute silence, the content creator reappeared on her social networks to apologize for what happened and to confess that she was going to donate a million euros to the hospital.
”I have always been convinced that the luckiest have the moral responsibility to do good. These are the values ??that have always driven me and my family. This is what we teach our children. We also teach them that mistakes can be made, and that when they happen you have to admit it, and if possible, fix the mistake made,” he began by saying.
”And that’s what I want to do now. I apologize and give concrete measures to my gesture: I will return 1 million euros to the Queen Margaret Hospital to support the care of children. But it is not enough: I do it publicly because I realized that I made a communication error,’ he declared. ”I will challenge the AGCM’s measure because I consider it disproportionate and unfair. My mistake in good faith was linking a commercial activity with a charitable one. Unfortunately you can make mistakes, I regret having done so and I realize that I could have been more attentive,’ she asserted.
