What You Should Know About the FTC's New Marketing Guidelines

Recently, the FTC published it's final revisions to the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, which will go into effect on December 1, 2009. While the FTC had addressed this issue in the past, the latest revisions tackle the use of endorsements and consumer testimonials in new forms of "consumer-generated" media - for example the use of blogs for word-of-mouth online marketing campaigns.

The Guides address all “endorsements”  or advertising messages which could be understood as the opinion of someone other than the sponsoring advertiser, from the perspective of consumers. Mind you, the FTC does not think that all bloggers reviews, product discussions, or opinions should be deemed "endorsements" - it makes that decision based on the relationship between the blogger and the advertiser.

For example, is the blogger who is raving about a new product acting independently (no endorsement) or are they acting on behalf of the advertiser or agent (endorsement) as a part of a marketing campaign. Basically, if you are reviewing or promoting a product for which you have been compensated (or will be) in one way or another, either by receiving a free sample, product, or receive income from sales of the product, you must disclose this information.

If a consumer who purchases a product or service with his or her own money and then praises it on their blog, or on a message board, that would not be considered as providing an endorsement. However, a blogger who is paid to speak about an advertiser’s product would be covered by the new guidelines, regardless of whether the blogger is paid directly by the marketer itself or by a third party on behalf of the marketer.

Following are some of the guidelines to keep in mind:

* Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions and true experience of the endorser. If paid actors are used, this fact must be disclosed.

* Endorsements may not contain any representations which would be deceptive, or could not be substantiated, if made directly by the advertiser.

* Endorsements must be representative of what consumers can reasonably expect to achieve. Any claim made by the endorser must reflect the opinion or experience of a significant proportion of consumers. Disclaimers like “results not typical” are no longer sufficient.

* All material connections between the advertiser and the endorser (including research or medical organizations) that consumers would not expect must be disclosed, including free products or monetary compensation.

For the full text of the Guides go to -

http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005endorsementguidesfnnotice.pd

The full FTC Press Release - http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm??