from the can't-even-trust-youtube-anymore dept.
Video bloggers (or vloggers) on sites such as YouTube must be up-front about videos that are paid advertisements, according to UK's Cap:
The UK's Committee of Advertising Practice (Cap) has published new guidelines for video bloggers who enter marketing relationships with brands. The rules encourage vloggers to label advertising content and explain when they have been asked to feature products sent to them by companies. Videos could carry digital text such as "sponsored" or "ads". Last year, the advertising authority ruled that several vlogs praising Oreo biscuits were not clearly marked.
[...] In a statement, Shahriar Coupal, director of Cap, said: "Wherever ads appear we should be confident we can trust what an advertiser says; it's simply not fair if we're being advertised to and are not made aware of that fact." However, the guidelines noted that when free items are sent to vloggers without any editorial or content control over videos exerted by the brand in question, there is no need for them to follow the Cap code.
The Oreo videos in question were "banned" by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), but not removed from YouTube. The statement "Thanks to Oreo for making this video possible" was not considered sufficient acknowledgment that the videos were advertisements.
Guy Parker, the chief executive of the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), said at an event in London March that since the Mondelez ruling, vloggers had been actively asking the advertising watchdog for help on the issue.
The guidance issued by the CAP gives a list of eight scenarios of the types of commercial relationships that take place between brands and vloggers, and when the UK advertising rules kick in:
- Online marketing by a brand: Where a brand collaborates with a vlogger and makes a vlog about the brand and/or its products and shares it on its own social media channels.
- "Advertorial" vlogs: A whole video is in the usual style of the vlogger but the content is controlled by the brand and the vlogger has been paid.
- Commercial breaks within vlogs: Where most of the vlog is editorial material but there's also a specific section dedicated to the promotion of a product.
- Product placement: Independent editorial content that also features a commercial message.
- Vlogger's video about their own product: The sole content of a vlog is a promotion of the vlogger's own merchandise.
- Editorial video referring to a vlogger's products: A vlogger promotes their own product within a broader editorial piece.
- Sponsorship: A brand sponsors a vlogger to create a video but has no control of the content
- Free items: A brand sends a vlogger items for free without any control of the content of the vlog.
Related: Campaigners Urge FTC to Investigate YouTube for Kids App
Related Stories
Google's YouTube Kids application has come under fire from advocates who argue that the platform exposes kids to deceptive advertising practices disguised as entertainment. The YouTube Kids app was announced in February, and was designed to include an easy-to-use interface, content filtering, and parental controls.
"YouTube Kids is the most hyper-commercialized media environment for children I have ever seen," commented Dale Kunkel, a professor of communication at University of Arizona. "Many of these advertising tactics are considered illegal on television, and it's sad to see Google trying to get away with using them in digital media."
[...] "There is nothing 'child friendly' about an app that obliterates long-standing principles designed to protect kids from commercialism. YouTube Kids exploits children's developmental vulnerabilities by delivering a steady stream of advertising that masquerades as programming," said Josh Golin, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.
The complaint [PDF] was written by The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Children Now, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, and Public Citizen. It alleges that the intermixing of advertising and entertainment, the proliferation of undisclosed product endorsements, and lackluster screening of ads by YouTube's policy team all violate Section 5 of the FTC Act.
The campaigners cite "unboxing videos" as a particular concern. In one example:
This 7:41 segment is essentially a 7-minute long commercial for McDonald's. The entire segment is filmed in a play scene of McDonald's where dolls from Disney's Frozen movies enjoy toy versions of McDonald's products. According to the person in the video, "We are at McDonald's with Elsa and Ana... Ana is having her favorite ice cream sundae and Elsa is having a Sprite."
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has settled with Machinima Inc. after it paid YouTube broadcasters to endorse Microsoft's Xbox One without disclosure:
The FTC said the settlement [PDF] will forbid Machinima from running videos without properly disclosing when the broadcaster has been compensated for endorsing a product. "When people see a product touted online, they have a right to know whether they're looking at an authentic opinion or a paid marketing pitch," said FTC consumer protection bureau head Jessica Rich. "That's true whether the endorsement appears in a video or any other media."
[...] The videos were aired as part of an advertising campaign for Microsoft and its advertising agency, Starcom Mediavest Group. The FTC determined that neither Microsoft or Starcom would be subject to the complaint, which was instead made against Machinima. "The failures to disclose here appear to be isolated incidents that occurred in spite of, and not in the absence of, policies and procedures designed to prevent such lapses," the FTC said [PDF]. "Microsoft had a robust compliance program in place when the Xbox One campaign was launched, including specific legal and marketing guidelines concerning the FTC's Endorsement Guides."
Under the terms of the settlement, Machinima will be required for the next 30 years to clearly disclose when a video includes paid endorsements. The company will also be required to set up policies to ensure proper labeling and disclosure of paid endorsements and, for the next five years, maintain all documents related to the settlement available to the FTC.
Related: UK Vloggers "Must" Comply With Advertising Guidelines
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:07AM
The less easy it is commercials to pose as editorial content, the better. The FTC came down on regular bloggers for the same problem in their writings a few years back.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking [ftc.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:10AM
Hollywood studios routinely cut deals with consumer goods companies so that the star casually grabs a can of Pepsi out the fridge, let's say, instead of Brand X.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:25AM
Thank you for explaining to us what Product Placement is...
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Thursday August 20 2015, @09:02AM
We don't have Pepsi, will Coke be OK.?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @12:22PM
Sorry, no drugs allowed on the set.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:13PM
NO COKE. PEPSI!!!!!!!
Cheeseburger cheeseburger cheeseburger cheeseburger
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @12:20PM
I notice that you name the brand he takes out, but use "Brand X" for the brand he doesn't. How much did the former brand pay you so that you name them in your comment? :-)
(Score: 1) by AlphaSnail on Thursday August 20 2015, @02:09PM
How about the cutoff is if you start to mention and or talk about the product at all it crosses the line. Show me the pepsi, fine. Drink the pepsi, fine. Climb into your 18 wheeler with the pepsi logo on the side, fine. While chatting in conversation mention the name Pepsi out loud like at all, then you gotta admit if you were paid or you get in trouble. I feel like showing the logo and saying the product in conjunction is possibly enough of a definition. You don't HAVE to show a pepsi can and many film and TV productions have inserted fake products just to avoid this issue. Other than that the grey areas might be blurry and people stepping toward that line might not realize they've crossed it.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:09PM
And other countries routinely make the studios photoshop them or edit them out entirely in their local releases.
Some countries actually have LAWS against such things if they're not clearly shown as being advertisements.
That aside, it ruins Hollywood movies. Please stop. There are two entire scenes in I, Robot that exist purely to market a brand of shoe. Nothing breaks down the suspension of disbelief like a poorly scripted advert smack bang in the middle of a movie that has NOTHING to do with the film, the plot, the character, the original books or... well... anything at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 20 2015, @12:22PM
Great, now we'll find out that absolutely no one likes the Apple Watch except for paid Apple shills.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday August 20 2015, @04:04PM
What the hell is a vlog and who on earth came up with that name and WHY, why oh why, are others propagating such an awful name?
I'm assuming it's short for video blog, but blog was short for web-log, I believe. Video log should really be something like, I don't know, vidlog - but all possible names are atrocious.
Does the concept really need a name of its own at all? Can we not just say "Youtuber" or equivalent?
However, that aside, who is sitting and watching the equivalent of a blog filmed onto YouTube and how can we send help to this people? I should think accidentally finding themselves up to the limit of their bank account having bought all the Oreos is really the least of their worries.
The ASA, by the way, is a toothless, worthless organisation. Violations by its own members end up only with "the advert will not be shown again in the same form", but with zero repercussions. Beyond that, they REFUSE to pre-approve or check adverts until they've aired. They say they're not there to judge whether an advert is okay or not, only to act on complaints received as an industry body. Which makes them not only toothless, but pointless. They can only act after people have been scammed / offended / whatever ALREADY and can really only say "Don't do that exact thing again... something similar but different will be treated as an entirely fresh incident".