New FTC guidelines re comp'd trips & such
Jun 5, 2015 | 9:11 am
#1
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New FTC guidelines re comp'd trips & such
Say you’re planning a vacation. You do some research and find a glowing review on someone’s blog that a particular resort is the most luxurious place he has ever stayed. If you knew the hotel had paid the blogger hundreds of dollars to say great things about it or that the blogger had stayed there for several days for free, it could affect how much weight you’d give the blogger’s endorsement. The blogger should, therefore, let his readers know about that relationship.
It will be interesting to see how this is adopted within the community.
Jun 5, 2015 | 9:32 am
#3
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Roughly nil. Elsewhere in the doc the FTC admits that it is more likely to go after the vendor than the blogger, but that it will investigate if appropriate. I really wonder how it will affect someone like JohnnyJet, for whom roughly EVERYTHING is a comp'd event. I think it is less of an issue in this community, though I know a few who do comp'd press trips and write trip reports or who take free lodgings and write about that.
Arguably the recent spate of posts about Clear should have been disclosed as ads under these rules, too.
Arguably the recent spate of posts about Clear should have been disclosed as ads under these rules, too.
Jun 5, 2015 | 11:23 am
#5
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Basically, in the past people would say that they didn't receive "real" payment so the comp'd trip disclosure was not required as it was not a paid event. This changes that.
Jun 5, 2015 | 11:37 am
#6
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Previously comp'd trips were considered (by some) part of the regular way of doing business and not requiring disclosure. The new FTC guidelines now suggest that any communication about such, from a tweet to a full blog post, is considered sponsored content and must be disclosed as such.
It will be interesting to see how this is adopted within the community.
It will be interesting to see how this is adopted within the community.
Jun 5, 2015 | 2:02 pm
#7
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The negative is for the vendor, who buys the blogger's good review with comped accommodations. Because now folks will know the good review was bought rather than organic.
My company sponsors a few of bloggers by comping stuff to them. But our lawyers are very conservative and already require massive disclosure about the relationship.
Jun 5, 2015 | 5:03 pm
#8
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Does that disclosure include tagging every tweet with "AD" in some form or another? If not you're probably acting counter to the new rules.
Jun 5, 2015 | 7:02 pm
#9
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It's about time someone cracked down on this. It started out small, with the entire blogging industry, and now it's just another advertising expense.
Just like Google & yahoo have to report that search results are sponsored and ads marked as such, bloggers should have to do the same.
Just like Google & yahoo have to report that search results are sponsored and ads marked as such, bloggers should have to do the same.
Jun 5, 2015 | 8:40 pm
#10
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