Ad Standards (the self-regulatory physique for Canada’s promoting trade) lately launched their Fall 2023 replace to their Influencer Marketing Disclosure Guidelines. These Guidelines have been initially launched in 2018 and beforehand up to date again in Fall 2020.
A replica of the 2023 Influencer Disclosure Guidelines may be discovered right here.
Although the final substance of the Guidelines largely stay the identical, in the latest replace, there are just a few noteworthy modifications. For instance:
The “Affiliate Marketing” part has been revised to make clear that utilizing ‘#Ad’ will not be acceptable the place an affiliate hyperlink is supplied, and hashtags like ‘#CompanyPartner’ could be clearer. Instead of offering examples and finest practices for disclosure based mostly on particular fashionable social media platforms (i.e., TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter), the up to date Guidelines present particular examples and finest practices for disclosure based mostly on put up kind (i.e., static posts, character-limited posts, video posts, tales, blogs) with the said purpose to permit finest practices to be extra simply utilized to rising and new social media platforms as they come up.
Further, particular examples and finest practices for the disclosure of Gifted Products in addition to Events and Experiences have been added to the Guidelines.
In the “Do I Need to Disclose?” part:
Two examples associated to using “Avatars” have been added. In specific, if an organization is paying to have an avatar influencer endorse their product, then disclosure is required, but when an organization makes use of its personal avatar by itself social media pages, then disclosure is just not required. The “Gifted product” instance has been revised to say that if an influencer posts a couple of gifted product, they should disclose that the product is a present even when it’s not an endorsement. Although the instance and steerage associated to “Replies or direct messages to a ‘follower’” stays the identical, the inexperienced circle checkmark image (representing a necessity for disclosure) has been changed with a pink circle X image (representing no want for disclosure). The “Code exception” instance has now been renamed as “well-known partnerships”, and though the related steerage stays the identical, the pink circle X image (representing no want for disclosure) has been changed with a yellow circle exclamation image (representing “it relies upon” for disclosure).
Other modifications embrace:
In the Definitions part, the time period “Endorser” has been added for use interchangeably with the time period “Influencer”. The “Do’s and Don’ts of Disclosure” part was up to date to re-organize and higher make clear some earlier ideas and explanations, equivalent to within the context of gifted merchandise and unique occasion invites. Further, a tip to not use misspelled variations of disclosure (e.g., misspelled model title hashtags) was added to the part.
https://www.lexology.com/library/element.aspx?g=1ba538cf-f301-40f3-a271-0f36f5444a7d
