August 25, 2016
An interesting Canadian Business article on paid endorsements caught my eye earlier today. It discusses the increasing scrutiny of advertising regulators in Canada and the United States to require clear disclosures of material connections for online endorsements, including new Canadian Advertising Standards Canada (ASC) rules to require full disclosure of any paid endorsements or mentions of products and services.
Canada’s Competition Bureau has also been quite active recently in this area, emphasizing that material connections between online endorsers and brands being promoted should be clearly disclosed.
For several of my recent posts on online endorsements see here and here. For recent Competition Bureau guidelines on online endorsements, see The Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest, Volume 1.
Canadian Business article excerpt:
“A crackdown is finally coming on sponsored bloggers and influencers in Canada in the way of new rules that will require full disclosure of any paid endorsements or mentions of products and services.
The new guidelines, by Advertising Standards Canada, will come into effect by early 2017. They apply to bloggers and individuals who use social media—including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat—to talk up companies and their brands in exchange for remuneration of any kind.
‘Endorsement or testimonials must disclose any material connection between the endorser, reviewer or influencer and the entity that makes a product or service available,” says Janet Feasby, vice-president of standards at ASC. “If there is a connection, it must be clearly and properly disclosed in proximity to the representation of the product.’”
For the full article see: here.
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