Hidden sponsorships? Silent endorsements? Looks like these won’t cut it any more.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just updated its Endorsement Guides, requiring creators to make it obvious when they are publishing sponsored content.
Wait, didn’t the FTC do this already? Yes, the published guidelines are similar to the version proposed by the FTC in 2022—but with more constraints.
To help marketers make sense of the new Guides, Rob Freund published a Twitter thread of relevant FAQs. He shows you that:
- You can’t just add #ad in your TikTok post, it needs to be overlaid in the video.
- If you talk about a competing brand in a negative way, you must endorse your sponsor.
- Simply posting an image or a video of the creator using a paid brand requires endorsement.
- Only tagging a brand is not enough.
- Thanking the brand is not enough.
You can see a bunch of other examples in his thread. Maybe bookmark it, too.
About those reviews: Meanwhile, the FTC also wants to penalize companies that engage in sketchy review practices like buying or selling fake reviews, views, followers, and more.
If its proposed rule gets implemented, businesses that purchased fake reviews could be fined $50,000 for every time a customer sees one. Whoa.
Better not mess with the FTC…
