By: Ziare Brown, VP of Compliance
As you know, the FTC recently updated Testimonial and Endorsement guidelines. These guidelines, which were last updated in 1980, address the constantly evolving landscape of the marketing industry. The notice mainly addressed endorsements by consumers, experts, organizations, and celebrities.
Also addressed was the new requirement of disclosure of important connections between advertisers and endorsers. These new guidelines cause much confusion in our industry and as a result, the FTC has publisher FAQs to help businesses and individuals understand the new guidelines, found here.
The three basic principles the FTC identified are:
- Endorsements must be truthful and not misleading;
- If the advertiser doesn’t have proof that the endorser’s experience represents what consumers will achieve by using the product, the ad must clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected results in the depicted circumstances;
- If there’s a connection between the endorser and the marketer of the product that would affect how people evaluate the endorsement, it should be disclosed.
We strongly reading this page as it answers many questions that have lingered since the release of the new guidelines.
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Yea we’ve done the blood drive out here twice a yr for the...
Its about time, 30 years is a long time and the landscape has evolved quite considerably. Anybody agree that transparency is important when it comes to Testimonials and Endorsements?