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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

da Agency

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