Taming the wilderness
The marketing free-for-all that is the blogosphere has received a dose of reality from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today, as it updates its ‘Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising'.
Until now, bloggers have been at liberty to receive what the FTC calls "material connections" from advertisers, over and above the kind of display ads everyone can see, without the obligation to disclose them. These could take the form of additional payments or free products and the issue the FTC has with them is that they are not transparent, but may influence the endorsement a blogger gives to a product or company.
This is the first revision to these guides since 1980, before the Internet existed. The ability to offer and receive buying advice has been massively expanded by the Internet and it looks like the FTC decided it's time to try to regulate this untamed wilderness.
It's got a job on its hands though. The FTC is not just applying this to bloggers, but all ‘word-of-mouth' marketers, which, we assume, will also cover comments made through social media like Facebook and Twitter. It also conceded that decisions will have to be arrived at on a case-by-case basis.
Other targets of these new guidelines include the use of supposed ‘consumers' in advertising, especially when they imply their experience is ‘typical', when it isn't - they call on the ad to disclose what is typical. They also insist that if an advertiser refers to research commissioned by itself, it fully discloses that fact.
Celebrity endorsements also, quite rightly, become bound by the same rules concerning the disclosure of material connections between themselves and the company they are endorsing. And anyone, celebrity or otherwise, found to have made false or misleading claims in a paid endorsement, is guilty of deception.
The jurisdiction of the FTC is confined to the US, but we'd like to know what you think of this development and whether you would welcome such regulation in the UK. Let us know in the HEXUS.community discussion forums.
