Influencers must reveal sponsors, but TV shows can keep quiet about product placement, say new advertising rules
Brands who pay influencers to spruik them on social media have just four weeks to start disclosing it, according to new guidance from the Australian Association of National Advertisers. The guidance also covers native advertising and traditional media, including product placement and advertorial.
Brands that fail to disclose when money has changed hands may be in breach of a new provision in the AANA Code of Ethics, which kicks off on March 1.
The code is enforced watchdog the Advertising Standards Board, which is funded by the ad industry.
The AANA issue has issued detailed guidance on how to avoid falling foul of its new provision – clause 2.7 of its code of ethics – which states that “advertising or marketing communication must be clearly distinguishable as such to the relevant audience”.
Could not have come at a better time for Influencer Marketing. Since disclosing payment has zero affect on engagement, there’s actually no compromise for brands or Influencers in adding #spon or #ad. It rightfully puts the consumer first. It’s mandatory in US and UK and both those influencer markets are flying. Great milestone for AU.
Dear Simon, As an “influencer” whom we presume is being paid by Mumbrella, your plug for CommsCon should have been labelled “#ad”.
Please adhere to guidance in the future.
Agree in part Jules. However that really depends on how you measure engagement. Just because the same amount of people view an #ad, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their perception of the imagery being ‘real’ versus ‘paid for’ isn’t different. The real test lies in whether or not the level of desired behavior from seeing image remains the same; and without being able to directly track that to sales or some other type of behavioral metric, then I’m not so sure you can assume it has zero impact with such certainty. Will be interesting to see with time. Overall I support the AANA guideline & I’ll be watching with interest to see if the industry does adopt the recommendations.
In the case of product placement on big budget, high revenue generating shows like Master Chef it is deemed ok because ‘someone’ deemed audiences don’t mind a bit of product placement doused over their show. Well…..phew……but huh, who decided that?
In both the case of Influencer marketing and product placement the objective is the same; to influence purchase intentions. So, how come two different rulings dished out?
I wonder if the big influence of TV media channels and little influencer of celebs and bloggers had anything to do with the different rulings.
AANA are losing credibility quickly in my opinion.
Really Jules? Add ‘…by the way I was paid to say this’, to any statement and see how engaging it truly is.
The Channel Nine News and A Current Affair are unwatchable because of paid infomercials. What happens there
It has been best practice amongst any credible influencers to point out if you’ve been paid or have the brand you are supporting as a client, especially in the travel and tourism sectors. I think most people assume that any travel done by these people is somehow paid for by the destination regardless.