Influencer Marketing / Endorsement Guides >> Notice Period Is Over: Regulators Heighten Focus On Individual Influencers

Regulators and public watchdog groups intensified their focus on paid influencer marketing campaigns in 2017. Last spring, in the wake of petitions published by groups such as Public Citizen and TruthInAdvertising.org, which flagged "suspicious" celebrity Instagram posts, and criticized the adequacy of "built-in" social media disclosure tools, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent more than 90 letters to celebrities, athletes and other influencers - as well as to marketers - calling for influencers to "clearly and conspicuously" disclose their "material connections" in social media.

To bring the point home, the FTC issued 21 follow-up letters to recipients of the original 90 letters, including celebrities like Naomi Campbell, Vanessa Hudgens, Sofia Vergara and Lindsay Lohan, requiring them to provide a written response to the FTC on the status of their "material connections" to brands (and in the event of a brand relationship, to describe what actions they are or will be taking to ensure clear and conspicuous disclosure). In these letters, the FTC stated that ambiguous disclosures such as "#thanks," "#collab," "#sp," "#spon" or "#ambassador," or simply tagging a brand in a post without a disclosure, were not in compliance with the FTC's Endorsement Guides. The FTC is clearly heeding the concerns raised by consumer advocacy groups - and in light of the recent investigation by the New York State Attorney General into the practice of creating and selling fake "followers" to boost influencers' presence online - regulators will continue to closely monitor honesty and transparency in influencer marketing.

The FTC also updated its staff publication "The FTC's Endorsement Guides: What People are Asking" (the FAQs) to address more than 20 new questions relevant to influencers and marketers. The updates expressly included FAQs regarding Instagram Stories and Snapchat, noting that when scrolling through a "stream of eye-catching photos" (e.g., on Instagram), a viewer may not see a disclosure...

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