Have you had your greens today?
If you’ve been on TikTok at any point in the last few years, chances are you’ve had enough Greens to last a lifetime. The flat-tummy tea of the 2020s, Bloom Nutrition’s green powder has been taking social media by storm. But is this verdant craze authentic?
Bloom Nutrition is a self-proclaimed wellness company founded by Mari Llewellyn and her partner Greg LaVecchia in 2019. On their website, Llewellyn states that she was inspired to found the company due to a transformative weight loss journey; after deciding to take “ownership of her health by turning to wellness,” Llewellyn “lost 90 pounds and finally found self-love.”
The couple set out to create supplements for women’s fitness that weren’t “full of junk,” didn’t “taste like junk,” and didn’t have “ingredients [they] couldn’t pronounce,” they explained in their 2022 YouTube video “Our Story.” The result was the Bloom Greens & Superfoods powder, which the company claims helps with digestion, bloating, and energy.
The product also happened to go viral on TikTok.
“Greens have really taken off, the internet has discovered the Greens and they’ve gone viral on TikTok,” Llewellyn states in the video. “It’s insane how big this community has gotten—we could never have expected it.”
It’s true that many videos recommending Bloom Nutrition started popping up around 2021, though it’s important to note that some of these early endorsements have the “#bloompartner” tag in the caption. By 2022, the Bloom Greens powder was a phenomenon, following in the footsteps of the popular Athletic Greens powder, or AG1, that came before it.
Several things contributed to Bloom’s online marketing success—the vague nutritional branding, when combined with Llewellyn’s founding narrative, implicitly ties the powder to weight loss, an ever-present obsession on certain sides of TikTok. Then there’s the fact that Llewellyn herself was a fitness influencer before she founded the brand, which gave her the benefit of a fanbase and industry knowledge when she began Bloom.
“The community that I had built and gained trust with on my platform were all of our customers. The entire Bloom following was my following,” Llewellyn said in an interview with Modern Retail. Later in the interview, she notes that “being an influencer has allowed [her] to have a different view on what [Bloom does] as a brand and also to meet other influencers and network in that way.”
How did Bloom Greens become such a phenomenon?
Bloom’s combined strategy of reaching out to creators at all levels of popularity and requiring silent or minimal integration in their sponsored videos is probably the biggest contributor to their success.
Many large creators—most notably Alix Earle, but other big names like Kouvr Annon or Gabriela Moura—have made multiple videos for Bloom Greens, usually with minor or nonexistent acknowledgement of the product itself.
For example: a July TikTok from Gabriela Moura features her standing at a counter with two different canisters of Bloom powders. She mixes them into a glass of water as she chats about an upcoming podcast appearance and shows off her outfit of the day. She takes one sip from the cup of Greens before it disappears from the video entirely, then she finishes out the video without mentioning Bloom once. The caption reads “yayyy so excited <3 #bloompartner @Bloom Nutrition.”
Despite—or perhaps because of—the lack of acknowledgement, Moura’s fans took notice of her drink, and some of the comments asked her about the powder.
@gabimfmoura yayyy so excited <3 #bloompartner @Bloom Nutrition ♬ original sound – Gabriela Moura
“Gabi, can you tell us what that powder you always put in the water is for? And where I can found it xoxo,” one comment reads. Similar questions are peppered throughout the comments section.
Most large influencers that support Bloom tend to follow this tactic of placing the product onscreen, unaddressed, sipping from it once if at all, and tagging themselves a “#bloompartner” at the end of their caption. If they’re feeling zealous, they might even tag the company itself like Moura did, but that’s where the transparency ends.
The fact that Bloom wants their product to go unmentioned is actually a selling point.
Michelle Kimball (@michellebellexo), a TikToker who makes sketches about her life bartending, did a Bloom ad in 2023 and received backlash from her fanbase. In a response video, Kimball notes that part of what made her agree to the sponsorship was the fact that she only had to display it.
“I said [Bloom] can send it to me and if I like it, yes, I will absolutely do a video about it—they didn’t even need me to talk about it!” she explains. “They were just like, ‘Hey, if you just work it into your regular content and just tell a story you would normally tell, just having Bloom in your video, we’re gonna pay you to do that.’”
While this may have seemed more honest to Kimball, or at least less taxing than negotiating an ad read might, this Bloom marketing practice is in direct opposition of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s influencer disclosure guidelines.
Is Bloom Greens violating FTC guidelines?
In 2019, the FTC released “Disclosures 101 for Social Media,” their user-friendly guideline to influencer endorsements. Packaged in a purple PDF with fun little graphics of phones and likes, the guide lays out what’s expected of an influencer doing a brand deal.
“If making an endorsement in a video, the disclosure should be in the video and not just in the description uploaded with the video,” page four of the guide states. It elaborates: “Viewers are more likely to notice disclosures made in both audio and video. Some viewers may watch without sound and others may not notice superimposed words.”
Later, the guide clarifies that while phrases like “#bloompartner” are valid options for disclosing a partnership, it’s only considered a best practice on platforms with limited space, like Twitter. On any other platform, the FTC recommends a clear statement of association, such as “Thanks to [the brand] for the free product.” They also recommend using the platform’s disclosure tool (in TikTok’s case, the “Paid Partnership” banner) in addition to the other disclosure requirements.
It’s unclear whether Bloom partners are being paid in money or in free product for endorsements, and there has been speculation that the payment type is relative to the creator’s following size.
Some TikTok users, such as Kate (@herculeankate), have shared emails from Bloom asking them to record in exchange for free Greens, but the rumors that larger creators like Alix Earle receive cash payment are still unconfirmed. The Daily Dot has reached out to Bloom Greens via email, TikTok and Instagram direct message for more information.
Regardless, the fact remains that it’s necessary for any influencer who deals with Bloom to disclose their relationship with the brand.
“Disclose when you have any financial, employment, personal or family relationship with a product,” the disclosure guide states. It also clarifies that sponsor relationships aren’t solely financial. “If a brand gives you free or discounted products or other perks and then you mention one of its products, make a disclosure even if you weren’t asked to mention that product.”
@avaminaa jumpscare @Bloom Nutrition #bloompartner #fyp #foryou ♬ original sound – 💫
What’s with the disclosure issue?
These violations might appear to be cut-and-dry, but Dr. Mariah Wellman, assistant professor at the College of Communications at Michigan State University, said it’s hazier than that.
“These FTC guidelines, they came out quite a few years ago now and say that you have to disclose, but that was created because of, you know, people like the Kardashians,” said Wellman. “They weren’t created because of the everyday, run-of-the-mill influencer that’s promoting Bloom from their kitchen counter.”
Wellman studies social media influencers and authenticity in the wellness sphere. She’s watched the FTC develop these influencer guidelines since their inception in 2015, and finds them particularly clunky in the TikTok age. Sometimes, she added, brands actually make it more difficult for influencers—especially newer ones—to navigate FTC guidelines.
“There are plenty of brands that do their due diligence and explain to influencers how disclosure has to happen, and what the specific language is around this financial agreement that they have made,” Wellman explained. “But there are other brands who don’t offer that. They might offer less transparency, or they may say, ‘You can just use this if you want, right?’”
The PR-gifting present in influencer culture complicates things, but Wellman said that the most confusing thing for audiences is that they can never really confirm the nature of the product placement.
“I think that audiences are calling for more transparency, but they don’t know what they don’t know,” she pointed out. “There are people out there who just buy Bloom and post about it online and aren’t getting paid, so there isn’t actually a legal or ethical requirement for them to talk about where they got that product from, but there are others that aren’t.”
She continued: “And I mean, then there’s the conversation of—maybe this influencer got paid to share this product three months ago, and now they’re still using it and still sharing it, but the contract is over.”
These scenarios—a creator falsely disclosing a partnership they do not have, or using a product months after the initial one-time video deal is over—are not specifically or realistically covered in the FTC’s sparse influencer disclosure guide, but they do occur online everyday. And oftentimes, due to the solitary nature of influencers, neither the audience nor the FTC have any immediate way of knowing when situations like this are occurring.
What’s the issue with the FTC’s current guidelines?
The problem, in Wellman’s opinion, is that there is no clear legislation nuanced enough to tackle the complex way social media has developed since the “Disclosure 101” guide came out in 2019.
“Other countries have more specific disclosure statements and requirements, but the United States does not, and I think that part of that is because of how much money the influencer industry brings in and their connection with commercial brands,” she says.
“So I don’t know that we’ll see a change coming down the pipeline very soon when it comes to disclosing brand relationships with audiences in the influencer economy.”
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