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Sorry, Celebs, Using #Sp On Instagram Ads Isn’t Gonna Cut It

The Federal Trade Commission, the government organization that regulates advertising, just announced that it has started a crackdown on Instagram sponsored posts. It sent 90 letters to various influencers #and brands reminding them #of the FTC guidelines for social media endorsements. Basically: #saying #sp or “Thanks [@BRAND]” doesn’t cut it.

This is the first time the FTC has sent this kind of letter, which is not an official warning but rather a sort of nudge-nudge educational message, reminding them of the rules. The letters were sent in response to the advocacy group Public Citizen, which had sent a petition to the FTC about celebrities, athletes, and models doing ambiguously labeled Instagram #ads.

The FTC has not released the names of who got these letters, and Public Citizen does not know who exactly received a letter, either. Some of the people mentioned specifically in the complaint from Public Citizen include Bella Thorne, David Beckham, Mark Wahlberg, Scott Disick, Jenny McCarthy, Chris Pratt, Kendall Jenner, and Gigi Hadid.

Instagram: @markwahlberg

According to the FTC’s announcement today, the letters reminded people what does NOT meet their requirement for a clear disclosure, including…

These commonly used visual tricks that hide the disclosure:

  • Putting the disclosure at the end of a long caption, so that it’s cut off and you have to click “more” to read the full thing. Most people won’t ever click and see it.
  • #Using #tons of #hasgtags and #only saying #ad #last

And these three common tricks that are half-assed disclosures that simply aren’t clear to the average person that the person either got paid or got a freebie:

Instagram: @emrata

The FTC is careful to say that it doesn’t have specific wording requirements. If you use sp, you’re not going to jail immediately, but let’s just say there’s a good chance that this is not what the FTC considers a full, transparent disclosure to your audience of a material connection between you and a brand.

The idea here is that a normal person should be able to immediately understand that someone was paid (that includes getting free shit!) to post. I’ve been doing a column for BuzzFeed where I investigate whether various celebrity social media posts are ads or not, and one thing that’s clear is that even those of us who are pretty savvy about this kind of stuff are often truly confused about celebrity Instagram posts.

For now, Bachelor contestants hawking teeth whiteners don’t have to worry about getting arrested for not using the right hashtag. The FTC historically only goes after the brands, not the influencers, for cases of unclear social media ads. And there have only been a few of these actually brought to lawsuits – the most recent one was last summer, when the agency charged Warner Bros. for paying PewDiePie to review their latest video games without proper disclosure. But these reminder letters mean that the FTC is taking Instagram #spon more seriously — and that pressure from consumer advocacy groups can be effective.

Quelle: <a href="Sorry, Celebs, Using Sp On Instagram Ads Isn’t Gonna Cut It“>BuzzFeed

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Sorry, Celebs, Using #Sp On Instagram Ads Isn’t Gonna Cut It

The Federal Trade Commission, the government organization that regulates advertising, just announced that it has started a crackdown on Instagram sponsored posts. It sent 90 letters to various influencers #and brands reminding them #of the FTC guidelines for social media endorsements. Basically: #saying #sp or “Thanks [@BRAND]” doesn’t cut it.

This is the first time the FTC has sent this kind of letter, which is not an official warning but rather a sort of nudge-nudge educational message, reminding them of the rules. The letters were sent in response to the advocacy group Public Citizen, which had sent a petition to the FTC about celebrities, athletes, and models doing ambiguously labeled Instagram #ads.

The FTC has not released the names of who got these letters, and Public Citizen does not know who exactly received a letter, either. Some of the people mentioned specifically in the complaint from Public Citizen include Bella Thorne, David Beckham, Mark Wahlberg, Scott Disick, Jenny McCarthy, Chris Pratt, Kendall Jenner, and Gigi Hadid.

Instagram: @markwahlberg

According to the FTC’s announcement today, the letters reminded people what does NOT meet their requirement for a clear disclosure, including…

These commonly used visual tricks that hide the disclosure:

  • Putting the disclosure at the end of a long caption, so that it’s cut off and you have to click “more” to read the full thing. Most people won’t ever click and see it.
  • #Using #tons of #hasgtags and #only saying #ad #last

And these three common tricks that are half-assed disclosures that simply aren’t clear to the average person that the person either got paid or got a freebie:

Instagram: @emrata

The FTC is careful to say that it doesn’t have specific wording requirements. If you use sp, you’re not going to jail immediately, but let’s just say there’s a good chance that this is not what the FTC considers a full, transparent disclosure to your audience of a material connection between you and a brand.

The idea here is that a normal person should be able to immediately understand that someone was paid (that includes getting free shit&#033;) to post. I’ve been doing a column for BuzzFeed where I investigate whether various celebrity social media posts are ads or not, and one thing that’s clear is that even those of us who are pretty savvy about this kind of stuff are often truly confused about celebrity Instagram posts.

For now, Bachelor contestants hawking teeth whiteners don’t have to worry about getting arrested for not using the right hashtag. The FTC historically only goes after the brands, not the influencers, for cases of unclear social media ads. And there have only been a few of these actually brought to lawsuits – the most recent one was last summer, when the agency charged Warner Bros. for paying PewDiePie to review their latest video games without proper disclosure. But these reminder letters mean that the FTC is taking Instagram #spon more seriously — and that pressure from consumer advocacy groups can be effective.

Quelle: <a href="Sorry, Celebs, Using Sp On Instagram Ads Isn’t Gonna Cut It“>BuzzFeed

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Is This An Ad: DeRay McKesson And Verizon

Welcome to “Is This an #Ad?,” a column in which we take a celebrity social media post about a brand or product and find out if they’re getting paid to post about it or what. Because even though the FTC recently came out with rules on this, it’s not always clear. Send a tip for ambiguous tweets or ‘grams to katie@buzzfeed.com.

DeRay McKesson

Dave Kotinsky / Getty Images

THE CASE:

DeRay McKesson, activist and organizer, tweeted about how happy he was with his new Verizon phone plan.

THE EVIDENCE:

There’s three pieces of evidence here. Two indicate it’s an ad, and one suggests it isn’t.

1. No one in the history of forever has been excited about their cell phone plan, right? Everyone hates their phone company and their cable company; it’s not something that delights you like a candy bar or good quality black tights. It’s the lesser of several evils. So if you’re actually saying something nice about a phone company, you must be getting paid, right?

2. Notice the hashtag. It has the Verizon red checkmark logo in it – custom emoji for hashtags are one of Twitter’s advertising offerings. Using a branded hashtag is an incredibly high indicator for something being an ad, right?

3. Then we have the final piece of evidence, which should be weighed most heavily: the person who tweeted it. McKesson is not the kind of person who does #sponsored tweets. His reputation is built on his integrity, and as a prominent activist, he occupies a space closer to something more like a politician – people who could not accept sponsored tweets without serious professional repercussions – than, say, a Kardashian or even a Jonas brother.

THE VERDICT:

Shortly after the initial tweet, McKesson tweeted that it was NOT an ad. He also confirmed to BuzzFeed News that it was not an ad, and he has never done any sort of sponsored tweets.

Even though it wasn’t an ad, quite a few of his followers thought it was, and tweeted back at him. Some even angrily chastised him for violating the FTC rules about disclosing when a social media post is an ad.

This was clearly frustrating for McKesson, who just wanted to earnestly share a good deal with people. “I had an incredibly expensive cell phone plan given how much I&#039;m on my phone and the internet,” he told BuzzFeed News over text. “I&039;m legit excited about this new plan –- it literally cut my phone bill in half.” What kind of cake-eating plutocrat wouldn’t be excited about saving money like that?

Apparently, this isn’t even the first time that McKesson’s followers have accused him of doing deceptive sponsored tweets. “It happened when I tweeted about Dove Soap, Doritos, Spotify, and Patagonia, too,” he said (he often wears a signature blue Patagonia vest). “I&039;d just hoped that the immediate attacks on my integrity because of these types of tweets would have ended.”

The bad news is that celeb social media posts are so notoriously deceptive and done by flouting the rules that people are still confused. The FTC’s rules state that social media #ads should be labeled clearly, or use a hashtag like ad or sponsored. But we’re so used to seeing people skip out on those clear labels that we’re ready to assume the worst.

The good news here is that people have gotten wiser and more skeptical about celebrities or people with large social media followings doing ads. That’s a positive thing — the ability to identify ads masquerading as not-ads is an incredibly important tool to have, and it represents a new savviness on the part of consumers. Being able to tell when something on social media isn’t what it seems flexes the same muscle that identifying fake news does. For McKesson’s followers – people interested in politics and hard news – being able to identify fake news (the real kind of fake news from bogus sites, not just “news I don’t like”) is critical. The fake-news-detector skill is so necessary that it’s now being taught to young people in high schools.

Whether or not an instagram is sponsored or not might seem fairly silly. But in this light, the ability to tell when a Kardashian is being paid to promote a product is absolutely vital to the health of our democracy.

The moral here? Deceptive ads are eroding our country, and Verizon apparently has a great new deal on phone plans.

Quelle: <a href="Is This An Ad: DeRay McKesson And Verizon“>BuzzFeed

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Is This An Ad? Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl Airbnb

Welcome to “Is This an #Ad?,” a column in which we take a celebrity social media post about a brand or product and find out if they’re getting paid to post about it or what. Because even though the FTC recently came out with rules on this, it’s not always clear. Send a tip for ambiguous tweets or ‘grams to katie@buzzfeed.com.

Was this Lady Gaga Instagram an ad for Airbnb?

Was this Lady Gaga Instagram an ad for Airbnb?

instagram.com

THE CASE:

Last weekend, Lady Gaga performed at the Super Bowl in Houston. It was nice, we all had a great time, she jumped off a roof, she didn’t say anything political (or did she???), you know the deal. YAAASS Gaga, etc.

Ronald Martinez / Getty Images

After the Super Bowl, she posted an Instagram of herself in the doorway of a lavish house, with the caption “Thank you @airbnb for the gorgeous home in Houston for #SB51”

What does that mean? Is that an ad? Before we get into it, let me ask you all your opinion. Because YOUR opinion matters a lot here, almost as much as the truth. The whole golden rule on these kinds of things is whether or not the average person (you) would be able to tell if it’s an ad.

So don’t think too hard. Pretend you’re not reading an article about this. Just imagine you’re scrolling through Instagram. Maybe you’re on the couch watching TV, maybe you’re in bed or class — your normal Instagram viewing sitch. Get into that mindset. Are you there? Ok, good. So you’re scrolling…. and you see this quickly in your feed. You don’t linger on it, you just see it, read the caption, and keep going.

THE EVIDENCE:

The phrase “thank you @airbnb” sounds like it’s proooooobbbably an ad, right? But it’s ambiguous&#033; When Mindy Kaling recently used that same phrasing for a free mattress, the company ended up asking her to change her wording after I reached out to ask about it. They admitted it sounded ambiguous, and her new caption now reads “thanks @casper for the gift&033;” Saying “thanks for the gorgeous home” doesn’t mean that it was free or a gift – it could just mean she was grateful that Airbnb exists and has such amazing luxurious places. I’ve stayed in some great Airbnbs and I’ve felt that way&033;

But look. I don’t want to yank your chain around too much here. The best evidence is to look to the past: Beyoncé’s Super Bowl Airbnb from last year.

Beyoncé posted to Facebook a photo of herself sitting on the porch of a fancy house, with the caption “It was a Super weekend @airbnb”. At the time, I remember thinking that it was probably NOT an ad – she probably just preferred a private house to a hotel, right? I asked Airbnb to ask if it was an ad, and they wouldn’t really give me a straight answer, but months later did admit that it was a freebie (the home’s owner got paid by Airbnb, and Beyoncé didn’t pay anything).

Airbnb does this not infrequently – Mariah Carey, Kourtney Kardashian, and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have all gotten “gifted” Airbnb freebies. So we know Airbnb is definitely in the habit of doing this type of celeb #spon, and it’s not a leap to guess that’s what’s happening here.

THE VERDICT:

Airbnb confirmed to BuzzFeed News that just like with Beyoncé, they paid for Lady Gaga’s stay, but did not pay her on top of the free stay.

However, they did not respond to questions about whether or not her Instagram shoutout was an explicit or implicit quid pro quo arrangement. Did they just give it to her and never asked (but secretly hoped) that she might Instagram it? Or was a formal deal that she would create social content for them in exchange for a free stay? This distinction does seem to matter, right? To me, the second scenario feels way more ad-ish than the first.

But not to the Federal Trade Commission.Their stance is that there’s no difference between receiving merchandise (such as a free vacation rental) versus cold hard cash when it comes to social media endorsements. The house was listed for $10,000/night (although the listing is now suspiciously deleted from Airbnb) and she was there at least two nights (we know because she filmed the roof jump at a different night, so at least the day before and the night after. This means Airbnb provided her at least $20,000 worth of free housing, possibly more. So to the FTC, this is for sure an ad.

Was the language she used to indicate it’s an ad up to snuff for the FTC’s guidelines? Ehhh…. Probably not. The whole idea is it should be clear to a normal person whether or not she received a free stay; I don’t think it was totally clear. Saying “thanks for the gift” instead of “thanks for the home” would be more clear, perhaps.

The problem is that there’s an incentive to obscure the ad-iness of celebrity spon posts. An ad is much more effective if it doesn’t look like an ad. That’s the whole point, right? If she wrote “thank you for the free stay ad” it wouldn’t be quite as effective. Airbnb wants us plebes to think that Lady Gaga just loves Airbnb and chooses it over hotels. And Lady Gaga doesn’t want to seem like a craven shill who does Instagram sponcon like a Bachelor contestant.

Ironically, Airbnb is very excited to tell you about the other ad it ran during Super Bowl – a collage of faces of people of different ages and races with the tagline of #weaccept. The ad was interpreted as being a direct shot at Trump’s immigration policy, especially because Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky had previously tweeted out that the company would offer free lodging to refugees. Or, it could be interpreted as an attempt to save face after a lawsuit alleging that hosts racially discriminated against black and non-white renters.

So what’s the difference? The TV ad was Advertising with a capital A – the kind of noble, artful Advertising that is made by smart creative people and that “starts a conversation” and “tells a story.” A 30-second Super Bowl spot is the pinnacle of that format.

But a #sponsored Instagram from a celebrity? That’s not cool or prestigious. It’s seen as somewhat tacky, for low-level strivers and bogus products like weight loss tea.

Part of what makes whether we consider this an “ad” so confusing is the fact that the practice of giving free swag to celebrities in hopes that they’ll talk about it goes by a different name: publicity.

Allow me to try a theory here: advertising, with its biggest stage being a sports game, has a very macho, male connotation. Publicity, on the other hand, is for conniving fake women. Advertising’s mascot is Don Draper; publicity has PubLizity from The Kroll show and Lizzie Grubman. The reason Airbnb is happy to discuss its advertising but not its publicity is rooted in sexism.

Comedy Central

Ok, that might be a littttttle bit reaching.

But the difference between how a company views advertising vs publicity and how the FTC views that is perhaps where we run into problems. From the brand’s viewpoint, advertising is something very specific – a TV spot or a print ad made by an outside agency with a set budget and PowerPoints that show the campaign’s effectiveness. PR is more nebulous, often done in-house. Think about the process of making a print ad campaign for Gucci to be in Vogue versus the process of giving a Gucci gown to Nicole Kidman for the SAG Awards. It’s a whole different team of people, a different budget, a different metric for success.

Brands see publicity and advertising as very separate things. I think to a degree, consumers do, too. The FTC’s guidelines don’t really take into account this nuance between ads and PR. I’m slightly sympathetic to the fact that Airbnb doesn’t think it’s doing anything wrong by not complying fully with FTC rules and asking Lady Gaga to have her post be more explicit.

On the other hand, what we know about Airbnb is that it has a somewhat, hmm, how shall I say… loose stance on following government regulations about how it does its business. Airbnb has been embroiled for years in legal and legislative fights with local governments over whether or not its business model should be allowed.

Let’s just say that Airbnb had “A Million Reasons” to not make it a “Bad Romance” with the FTC and shouldn’t have to “Just Dance” around the issue that they gave large gift to Lady Gaga in exchange for her using her “Telephone” to post about it on Instagram and keeping a “Poker Face” about the “Perfect Illusion” that it wasn’t an ad.

NFL

Quelle: <a href="Is This An Ad? Lady Gaga’s Super Bowl Airbnb“>BuzzFeed

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Is This An Ad? Mindy Kaling And Casper Mattresses

Welcome to “Is This an #Ad?,” a column in which we take a celebrity social media post about a brand or product and find out if they’re getting paid to post about it or what. Because even though the FTC recently came out with rules on this, it’s not always clear.

Instagram: @mindykaling

THE CASE:

We have Mindy Kaling, comedian, writer, star and creator of The Mindy Project and best-selling author.

And then Casper, a startup that sells reasonably priced mattresses. They’re foam, so they can be folded up and shipped in a neat little box.

On January 13, 2017, Kaling posted an Instagram of herself with a box from the mattress company, saying something sort of confusing about how it’s cold so she needed a new mattress, and “thanks to my friends @Casper.”

THE EVIDENCE:

Let’s start with the tangible evidence. The photo was actually split into two photos, one where she is smiling at the camera, the second where she is examining the box. She’s wearing a winter jacket inside, which is not typical for receiving a new mattress, and opens even more questions — did she just come in and find the box waiting for her, and took photos in a rush of glee before removing her coat? Or does the coat suggest she’s somewhere other than home — say, the Casper showroom? This one goes deep.

But let’s take a step back and think about who the parties are here. Mindy Kaling is not the kind of celebrity who is prone to posting ads for detox tea or tooth whiteners on her Instagram. She’s an A-list television actress who can definitely afford her own mattress and has a main job (making a TV show) that isn’t about leveraging her social media presence.

Also, Kaling is an enthusiast of things. I am admittedly a big Mindy Kaling fan and I find this aspect of her endearing and charming. Some stars, like Beyoncé, have a highly manicured social media presence, and if you see a product or brand in there, it’s likely not just, “hey this is what I’m eating right now.” Kaling uses Instagram more like a plebeian, capturing lots of casual moments on the fly, and like the rest of us, brands are woven into her life. When she Instagrams herself at her family’s home holding a tub of Friendly’s ice cream, we don’t assume that’s an ad from Friendly’s. We assume that she is fondly remembering the regional New England ice cream brand of her youth, just like the rest of us do when we go home for the holidays and pig out on the kinds of junk food our parents keep around.

When she photographs herself posing on some suitcases outside the luxury brand Goyard store in Manhattan with the caption “Photo taken quickly before the store owner could tell what I was doing,” we believe that she was just goofing around with friends on a walk, not that she’s a paid spokesperson for Goyard. Because posing surreptitiously in front of a weird store display is something the rest of us would totally do. People love Mindy Kaling because she&#039;s very relatable — she feels like she could be one of your friends, and her social media reflects that. She is, as they say, just like us.

Instagram: @mindykaling

And yet….. Are we really to believe that she just happened to order a mattress and then instagrammed it? And the caption “thanks to my friends at @Casper” — that implies it’s a gift, right? Or could the “thanks” just be thanking them for excellent customer service?

THE VERDICT:

While representatives for Mindy told me she was unable to comment since she was in production, Casper did respond.

Turns out, Casper and Kaling really are “friends” Well, sort of. A Casper rep told me, “Mindy is a Casper employee&039;s roommate&039;s friend&039;s boss. She&039;s also one of our favorite comedians.” Did you get that? Here, I made a chart for you:

But did she get it free? Yup. According to Casper, “we heard she was interested in buying a mattress and we were happy to gift her new beds.”

Wait, beds plural? How many exactly did she receive? Her photo seem to suggest it was just one bed, photographed twice. But Casper confirmed the gift was actually two beds. This means the gift had a retail value of $1,100–$2,200 depending on the size of the beds.

The FCC rules about disclosing ads on social media posts dictate that a gift of goods is akin to cash compensation, so any related post should be marked as an ad (or something like ad, #sponsored, etc). Though the FCC claims that it’s clear on this rule, in practice, it’s the most frequently ignored. Celebrities have been getting free shit since time immemorial (I imagine Jesus got lots of free sandals). Considering Mindy Kaling is an A-list star who has probably gotten free clothes and swag for years, the minutiae of FCC rules originally meant for bloggers isn’t top of mind.

Kaling’s original caption (“thanks to my friends”) is ambiguous. Sure, there’s a connotation that it was a free gift, but it’s phrased in really obscure terms – you have to know the freebie dialect to read between the lines.

The fans are getting wise to this. In the comments of Kaling’s post, someone clearly calls her out for not using sponsored or ad, against the FCC rules. But you’ll notice in the comments that… it’s also clearly working for Casper, regardless of whether or not it’s an ad. Mindy Kaling fans are chatting with each other about Casper mattresses — one person has some of her own and recommends them, another asks if they’re really too firm, other people say how they want to get one. This, my friends, is exactly why Casper gave two free mattresses to a celebrity.

When Casper replied to me about whether they were a free gift, they also wrote that they now realized that the Instagram caption was ambiguous, and were going to reach out to Kaling to change it. Now the caption reads “Thanks @Casper for the gift&#033;”

Impact, my friends. Impact.

Quelle: <a href="Is This An Ad? Mindy Kaling And Casper Mattresses“>BuzzFeed

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Instagram Advertisers Switch From Celebrities To "Microinfluencers"

@glowingkite / Via instagram.com

The push to make social media celebrities and “influencers” more honest about who is paying them to post has been complicated by the rise of a new category of Instagram promoter: the so-called microinfluencer, people with as little as ten followers who are being paid by brands just like top-tier stars.

Advertising businesses like #Influenster and #BzzAgent allow anyone with a social media account to sign up and receive free products for review, from brands like Maybelline, BITE beauty, Kleenex, and International Delight. Their social media posts appear with hashtags like gotitfree or gotacoupon, or with a note that the product was received “complimentary.” Often there is no indication they got it for free.

In a letter on Wednesday, consumer advocacy groups told the Federal Trade Commission these posts don&#039;t meet federal disclosure guidelines, which recommend clearly using #advertisement or #ad in posts.

“One of our biggest concerns is that this is becoming normalized and so seamlessly integrated into our everyday interactions with social media,” Kristen Strader, the commercial alert campaign coordinator for advocacy group Public Citizen, told BuzzFeed News. “Of course this is what advertisers want, but it is unfair to the consumer, especially young consumers who are growing up seeing paid endorsements on social media without understanding that those posts are actually advertisements.”

@sjbutterfie / Via instagram.com

Public Citizen found 50 examples of undisclosed influencer posts on Instagram between Sept. 1 and Nov. 14, a handful of which belonged to users with fewer than 1,500 followers, according to its letter to the FTC.

One review from BzzAgent member @sjbutterfie, who describes herself as a blogger, influencer and product reviewer, writes, “I just love the new L&039;Oréal Pure Clay Masks I received from BzzAgent.”

She goes on to rave about how the mask left her skin “so soft” that she can now put makeup on “effortlessly.” She includes the hashtags #gotitfee bzzagent #bzz #loreal and #pureclaymasks. But no tag mentions it is an ad.

Another post for Influenster by @kscitysweetheart found by BuzzFeed News shows a picture of an E.L.F. lipstick along with a five-star review. The caption on the post is simply the product name and five hashtags including influenster and #voxbox.

@kscitysweetheart / Via instagram.com

The FTC has not explicitly told brands and influencers how they need to disclose their financial relationships, Bonnie Patten, an attorney and executive director of the non-profit group Truth In Advertising, told BuzzFeed News.

But it does require a “clear and conspicuous” disclosure when an influencer is paid or given a product for free “with the expectation that you’ll promote or discuss the advertiser’s products,” according to its site.

“You can’t hide the disclosure in a show more description in a YouTube page,” said Patten. “You can’t hide the hashtag ad or #igothisforfree in the midst of 22 other hashtags. Basically the law says you have to be transparent and the consumer shouldn’t have to work harder to figure out whether this is an ad or not.”

@pheolynx739 / Via instagram.com

BzzAgent and Influenster together have nearly 3 million members who receive free products to review online. Both companies told BuzzFeed News that they take disclosure seriously and have their own disclosure guidelines for members. If their members don&039;t follow the rules, they risk getting kicked out.

BzzAgent reviewers must use #gotitfree or #gotacoupon in their posts. Influenster reviewers must simply disclose they received the product “complimentary” from a brand.

Candace Lee, BzzAgent&039;s head of audience, told BuzzFeed News that she has suspended some accounts over disclosure issues. But “it&039;s not problematic for us,” she added.

“We have the vast majority of our agents complying with our hashtags,” she said.

Influenster declined to disclose how many of its members had been suspended over disclosure issues.

The issue of nondisclosure may become more important as Instagram prioritizes photos and videos in feeds based on a user&039;s relationship with the person posting, the timeliness of the post and their interests. While celebrities have bigger followings, a friend of a friend could have their posts appear higher in your feed.

Justin Kline, co-founder of advertising business Markerly, which connects brands to influencers, told BuzzFeed News that the company steers its clients away from working with bigger celebrities. Brands tend to get higher engagement through people who may already be passionate about the product but have a smaller following, he said.

“There are some negative connotations in working with influencers and people thinking, &039;Oh I’m being tricked by this person,&039;” he said. “We try to steer our clients in being honest — &039;I got chosen by this brand to promote this product.&039; Just embracing that whole notion, it comes off more authentically.”

But Strader with Public Citizen said this strategy makes advertising “even more seamlessly integrated in our social media platforms” which can leave consumers very little room to opt out.

“There are a lot of people who choose not to follow celebrities or companies or anyone who can give them an advertisement; they just want to follow their friends,” she said. “This is advertisers finding their way into a consumers&039; lives who actively don&039;t want them there. This is them reaching an audience without that audience having any control over it or any knowledge of it.”

Quelle: <a href="Instagram Advertisers Switch From Celebrities To "Microinfluencers"“>BuzzFeed

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Is This An Ad? Jonathan Cheban And The Whopperito

Welcome to our weekly column, “Is This an Ad?,” in which we strap on our reportin’ hat (it is NOT a fedora, please stop imagining that) and aim to figure out what the heck is going on in the confusing world of celebrity social media endorsements. Because even though the FTC recently came out with rules on this, sometimes when celebrities post about a product or brand on social media, it’s not immediately clear if they are being paid to post about it, got a freebie, just love it, or what.


Instagram: @jonathancheban

THE CASE:

Jonathan Cheban is a former publicist, current entrepreneur, bon vivant, internet troll, and, perhaps most famously, Kim Kardashian’s best friend. Martha Stewart does not know who he is.

In his current career incarnation (Cheban is quick to point out that he hasn’t done PR in years, and now owns between 5-10 companies, depending what month you ask him), he has some sort of relationship (perhaps partial owner?) with a burger joint on Long Island and a lifestyle website called TheDishh.com.

Perhaps because of these new business developments, he’s taken a turn to positioning himself as some sort of culinary expert, referring to himself as the “Foodg&#x14D;d.” The bar over the “o” is called a macron, and it means the word should be pronounced “foodgoad”.

(I have a theory of how this came about: starting maybe two years ago, Cheban began experimenting with a fairly typical Instagram ploy to gain followers: reposting like-bait photos of decadent desserts or other foods. These were photos he found elsewhere and would caption things like “mmm yum&#033;” or about how much he wanted to eat it. He still does some of this sort of stuff, like a recent post where he posted a photo of an ice cream cotton-candy hybrid with the caption, “I need to try this cotton candy ice cream cone immediately …xx Foodg&x14D;d.”)

Instagram: @jonathancheban

But we’re not here to talk about ice-cream cotton candy. We’re here to talk about Cheban’s recent post about eating Burger King’s new menu item, the Whopperito.

The Whopperito is fairly straightforward: it’s Whopper filling (with spicer meat), in a burrito tortilla instead of a bun. Nick Gazin, a Vice reporter who recently ate three of these for a review, wrote: “It is my belief that this Whopperito was made to cater to the Jackass generation who want to do gross things on Instagram to show off. I don&#039;t think this was an earnest food invention. I think this is stunt-burgerism created to get press and hashtags.”

THE EVIDENCE:

So, the obvious thing here is that Mr. Cheban used the hashtag #thekingpaidmetodoit. That seems like, obvs it’s an #ad, right? I mean, he’s saying it right there. OR IS HE?

Here’s the weird part: if you search that hashtag, two posts show up. The other is from 3 weeks before Jonathan&039;s, from a young fashion and lifestyle blogger named Ria Michelle (I reached out to her to ask if she could confirm she was paid; I did not hear back). The best theory here is that a digital marketing agency convinced Burger King to pay social influencers to post about the Whopperito using the cheeky and winking tag thekingpaidmetodoit (so transgressive and ironic, right?) And yet… they only found 2 people to actually use the tag? Sounds like some ad buyer somewhere has some explaining to do.

There’s something more mysterious about the fact that only two people used the tag – it confuses the obvious narrative that this is clearly a paid ad. Was this just a huge failure, or is there something else going on?

Here’s how celebrity endorsements work: companies want someone who will ~align with their brand’s message~. Even if consumers know it’s an ad, that’s ok, it still has to be someone who makes sense. When we see Matthew McConaughey monologuing to a cow in a TV ad for Lincoln cars, we know it’s he’s getting paid, but isn’t there something about it where you’re like “yeah, I could totally imagine he’d drive a Lincoln”? There’s a good brand alignment there.

Cheban’s recent personal branding as “foodgoad” is relevant here: He’s worked to establish himself as an influencer in the world of viral, unhealthy food. Remember what Vice said about the Whopperito, how it was just a social media stunt food? Well, what better way to align a product that is purely a vapid, frivolous trend food designed only to appeal to society’s lowest denominator than with Jonathan Cheban? It’s simply good brand alignment.

THE VERDICT:

UNDETERMINED.

Believe it or not, we couldn’t verify this. BuzzFeed News reached out to Burger King to confirm if this was a paid endorsement, and they refused to comment on it. Which…. is not a good look for them, since according to the FTC’s point of view, it’s the responsibility of the brand to be crystal-clear about paid social media endorsements.

So then we tried to ask Cheban. I’m already blocked by him for posting about how he is rude to fans on social media, so fellow BuzzFeed reporter Jess Misener asked:

Cheban didn’t reply, and promptly blocked Jess on Twitter.

WHAT ARE YOU HIDING, JONATHAN?

Since both Cheban and Burger King were stonewalling me, I went to some experts in the field of celebrity endorsements to find out their opinions on this.

According to Stefania Pomponi, founder and president of the Clever Girls influencer marketing agency:

I am 99.9% positive Jonathan Cheban&039;s Whopperito post is a paid sponsorship. He is being coy about disclosing his paid endorsement, which is in direct violation of FTC guidelines which state that standardized hashtags like ad or #sponsored be used. The guidelines further explain that disclosure hashtags must have a clear meaning to the audience (meaning the audience shouldn&039;t have to guess if a post is sponsored) and hashtags can&039;t be abbreviated (e.g. #sp instead of sponsored). If Cheban wants to be in compliance, he needs to make sure his disclosures … are clearly and easily understood by his audience.

Lucas Brockner, associate director of partnerships and business development at the social media agency Attention:

While nobody loves seeing the ad, sponsored or the somewhat sneaky sp, it’s part of the FTC guidelines and something we ask all influencers to include in posts. To no surprise, influencers don’t like putting this in their posts as it can result in negative backlash from their audiences. As a result and as seen in this example, you’re starting to see more clever ways that influencers are disclosing that they were paid for these types of social promotions. Of course, the more authentic the partnership, the more creative you can be. For example, the idea of using the language “in partnership with” has become a favored term amongst influencers/celebrities and brands when it’s an ongoing content series versus a one-off endorsement.

Dear readers, I have failed you here. Some secrets are too deep, too dangerous, too guarded by the forces of power and money to ever be revealed. Whether or not Jonathan Cheban ate that god-awful meat tube for fun or profit is one of those secrets.

Quelle: <a href="Is This An Ad? Jonathan Cheban And The Whopperito“>BuzzFeed

da Agency

Advocacy Group Files FTC Complaint Over Kardashians' Instagram Ads

Kylie Jenner&#039;s Instagram #ad for Fit Tea.

Via instagram.com

Last week, the nonprofit consumer advocacy group Truth in Advertising (TINA) sent a letter to the Kardashian/Jenner clan warning them about deceptive advertising on their social media.

Today, the organization officially filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, saying that Kim Kardashian West and her sisters had failed to comply with FTC disclosure standards for paid ads.

The Kardashians are notorious for hawking teeth whiteners, diet teas, waist trainers, and other products on social media, usually without disclosing that these are ads by using a hashtag like ad or #sponsored. TINA has compiled a database of the these ads.

Since last week’s letter, the Kardashians have gone back and deleted a few old posts that were in violation, or updated them to say ad at the beginning.

The FTC has rules on sponsored social media posts. The agency wants it to be clear to consumers if something is a paid endorsement — especially because, unlike traditional TV or magazine ads, sponsored social media can be a bit murky. According to the FTC’s social media guidelines, “the question you need to ask is whether knowing about that gift or incentive would affect the weight or credibility your readers give to your recommendation. If it could, then it should be disclosed.” The FTC also prefers that posters include their disclaimers at the beginning, not the end, of a post (which may be cut off by Instagram), and that they don’t use abbreviations like #sp.

A recent post for vitamins now says ad at the beginning:

Instagram: @kimkardashian

TINA filing a complaint doesn’t mean the FTC will actually do anything, and technically anyone can file an FTC complaint. TINA has a history of working with the FTC and has had some success getting the agency to act on complaints they’ve filed. TINA recently brought to the government&039;s attention Vemma, an energy drink company that was eventually shut down by the FTC for being a pyramid scheme.

“The Kardashian/Jenner family and the companies that have a commercial relationship with them have ignored this law for far too long, and it’s time that they were held accountable,” Bonnie Patten, executive director of TINA, said in their statement on the complaint.

A representative for TINA told BuzzFeed News that since sending the letter out, the organization has been working with a lawyer for the Kardashians, who had been cooperative. But as of today, lots of posts still hadn’t been changed.

Interestingly, posts about smaller companies like SugarBearHair (a vitamin supplement) or Fit Tea were updated quickly. But bigger companies like Estée Lauder (for which Kendall Jenner is a spokesmodel) or Puma (for which Kylie Jenner is a spokesmodel) were more likely to resist being updated with something as gauche as “ad.” In one of Kendall’s original posts, she tagged @EsteeLauder and hashtagged it #KJ4EL — something that a casual Kendall fan might not know signifies that she has a longstanding advertising relationship with the company. Kendall recently updated the photo with an additional hashtag, #EsteeModel.

Kendall’s updated post now says EsteeModel:

instagram.com

According to the complaint filed with the FTC, “The willingness of the Kardashians/Jenners to alter their Instagram posts endorsing companies such as SugarBearHair suggests they would also fix other similarly deceptive posts if permitted to do so by the other companies they endorse. As such, it is apparent that the issue is with the companies, who continue to flagrantly ignore the law.”

In general, the FTC considers brands/companies to be on the hook for making social media ads clear, and they don’t try to go after individual bloggers or social media personalities. For example, in a recent case involving Warner Bros. placing ads with video game vloggers, the agency fined Warner Bros., not the vloggers. But in the case of the Kardashians, who are running a huge business off of social media endorsements, it’s possible the FTC could decide to make an example out of them to set a precedent.

Earlier this week, lawyers for the Kardashian/Jenner family told TINA in a statement that they planned to “work swiftly and diligently with our brand partners and TINA” to clear up confusing old posts. BuzzFeed News has reached out to the lawyers for comment on the filing of the FTC complaint.

Quelle: <a href="Advocacy Group Files FTC Complaint Over Kardashians&039; Instagram Ads“>BuzzFeed