When is the FTC Going to Cash In on Celebrity Endorsements?
The warnings from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have been sent, more than 90 direct emails to marketers and their influencers, including actors and musicians like Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Hailey Baldwin, Sofia Vergara, Lindsay Lohan, Sophia Bush, Zendaya Coleman, Jennifer Lopez, Luke Bryan, and Sean Combs.
We’ve written about disclosure before, but I’m still amazed at the number of influencers who neglect to disclose their financial compensation or trade relationships with the companies they speak about. When I have a material connection with a company, I work to disclose that relationship on a few levels:
- Every piece of content I publish, whether a tweet or a full post, will include a mention that they’re a client, that we’re an affiliate, that we’re sharing an ad, or that they’re a sponsor. My sidebar clearly states how I monetize my site.
- Across my sites, I share the company names of the companies I work with.
- Even my Terms of Service state that I often speak about clients or that I have monetary relationships, and that I disclose them. It’s important to note that a general TOS doesn’t cover FTC guidelines, though!
I feel as though I’m one of the few, though.
Unambiguous and Unhidden Disclosure
Those two words are key to the FTC guidelines. However, I listen to podcasts, watch live videos, and read daily social updates from leaders in the marketing industry who don’t even disclose their paid relationships with vendors, conferences, or even their own clients. Week after week, they’ll discuss using a tool, and it turns out the company that owns it is a client of theirs. Aside from violating the FTC’s disclosure guidelines, it’s a disservice to their audience and community.
Not only is that disturbing, but I also have backlinking companies contact me regularly who wish to pay me to place backlinks in my content, and they request no disclosure. I always ask them, clearly in my response, whether they are asking me to directly violate the FTC’s disclosure guidelines. I never get a follow-up response.
Those warning emails sent from the FTC were a warning shot across the bow of the entire industry. No one should ignore the fact that they also announced and promoted sending emails. Unfortunately, the warnings appear to be going unnoticed, and it’s probably time for the FTC to make some examples out of celebrities, influencer marketing platforms, and the marketers who acquire the services.
The FTC’s Endorsement Guides state that if there is a ‘material connection’ between an endorser and the marketer of a product – in other words, a connection that might affect the weight or credibility that consumers give the endorsement – that connection should be clearly and conspicuously disclosed, unless the connection is already clear from the context of the communication containing the endorsement. FTC letter sent to Mark King, President of Adidas Group North America.
FTC Endorsement Guide
Instagram Celebrities Still Violate FTC Guidelines
A company that builds custom influencer campaigns researched celebrity social media profiles and found that 93% of celebrity social media endorsements on Instagram violate FTC guidelines:
