Famous People Asking for a Free Product in Exchange for Instagram Publicity

To be fair it was t the actress herself asking for freebies it was her PR company.
My daughter was HO Marketing for a prestigious clothing brand, they got many requests from PR agencies saying their client would like a free whatever and would wear it at big events etc.
The Princess of Wales wore an item about 5 years ago and pictured in it at Balmoral.
It sold out in minutes!

The cake maker's reply was along the lines that unfortunately her mortgage provider didn't take promised publicity as payment and neither would the staff whose wages she had to pay.

Well the cake maker has now got plenty of free advertising for her business after the newspaper article. Good for her.

Isn't that how influencers work? They promote products in exchange for goods and payment.

I stand corrected it was the PR company as you point out Sago and yes I gather that's how influencers work. There still appears something amiss to me, asking for freebies equates to freeloading imo. The woman who has the cake enterprise has a business to run with overheads. Anyway she has the publicity now so it's been a win win for her, which is good.

She's an actress not an influencer.

My DD2 runs her own business and a certain sleb turned up driving a BMW and sporting designer wear. At the end of the session, she asked DD2 if she could have it for free in exchange for mentioning it on her Instagram. Apparently that's how it works.

This is very common. Using influencers is a pretty basic marketing strategy. In the US there are entire marketing agencies dedicated to influencer marketing alone. It’s starting to catch on in the UK. The famous kids get free stuff, but the businesses get free exposure minus a bit of product. No big deal. Business owner should have checked how many followers the young lady had before turning down the free adverts. If she had 500k plus followers that could mean a lot of exposure for the bakery.

I think the business is a small concern and possibly felt providing a fairly substantial order for free was too big an ask. It was entirely the owner's prerogative to turn the request down. I don't see why the actress in question had to pile in and tell her that she was ridiculous or words to that effect, passing up free publicity. I don't doubt, as mentioned up thread, that The Princess of Wales would garner a lot of sales for whatever she was wearing, not that I'm suggesting she gets her clothes for free.

I know this is how influencers operate but even they should accept being turned down for freebies after all it hasn't been unknown for some who do this for a living to affect sales of a product in a negative way.

Cake lady said no. Her choice.
That should have been the end of the matter.

I agree with the cake lady's decision. Perhaps the actress would like to be paid in cup cakes??