Month: July 2017

Truth in Advertising and YouTube Reviews

There are now countless YouTubers who receive free printers for unboxing/review videos. Certainly not all, but many of them are engaging in deceptive advertising. Many of you don’t really care. If you do though, recognize your power as a consumer and direct your money wisely.In the US we have the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an independent government agency concerned with consumer protection. One of the FTC’s principal mandates is to stop unfair practices in commerce, including deceptive advertising. I realize that not all Redditors or YouTubers are US-based, but various countries have their own version of such an agency.The FTC refers to YouTubers as “social media influencers” because their endorsements have the ability to influence consumer behavior. This is well recognized by manufacturers and retailers of 3D printers, and is precisely why 3D printers are given away free in exchange for review and discussion. Accordingly, the FTC classifies these videos as commercial speech.Under the FTC’s truth-in-advertising principle, influencers are supposed to explicitly disclose the fact that they received a printer for free. Anything less is deceptive advertising.Plenty of videos (I’ve seen two in the last 24 hours) make a disclaimer many lines into the video description, but do not disclose in the video itself that the printer was given to them. This does not meet the FTC’s disclosure standards.The FTC’s Endorsement Guides: What People Are AskingIf I upload a video to YouTube and that video requires a disclosure, can I just put the disclosure in the description that I upload together with the video?No, because it’s easy for consumers to miss disclosures in the video description. Many people might watch the video without even seeing the description page, and those who do might not read the disclosure. The disclosure has the most chance of being effective if it is made clearly and prominently in the video itself. That’s not to say that you couldn’t have disclosures in both the video and the description.The reality is that there are countless online influencers who are not meeting disclosure standards and never hear a word from the FTC, much less face enforcement action. One reason is there are simply too many for the FTC to handle. The other is that the FTC is far more concerned with companies than individuals.Are you monitoring bloggers?Generally not, but if concerns about possible violations of the FTC Act come to our attention, we’ll evaluate them case by case. If law enforcement becomes necessary, our focus usually will be on advertisers or their ad agencies and public relations firms. Action against an individual endorser, however, might be appropriate in certain circumstances.Given all of this, the only real reason for people to be honest and offer full disclosure is that they are ethical.Ethical reviewers offer disclosures. More importantly, ethical companies have policies and procedures to ensure the sponsored reviews of their products contain those disclosures. Ethical companies don’t want deceptive advertising practices associated with their brand.If you see a rash of reviews that lack proper disclosure – as is the case with vendors like GB – it’s a good sign that company doesn’t hold itself to a high ethical standard. We’ve seen plenty of other behavior from GB to reinforce this.You have a lot of power as a consumer. If you just want to buy the cheapest possible stuff, sold by ethically questionable companies, that is your prerogative. I do not wish to shame anyone or tell you where you’re “allowed” to spend your money.If you care about truth in advertising, however, I encourage you to only support vendors and YouTubers who make proper disclosures. If a review channel is using affiliate links to a printer they received for free while trying to bury the truth about their arrangement under 70 lines of a video description, consider whether they are worth your clicks, subscriptions, or referral money. Consider whether that company is one you can trust. http://ift.tt/2vNAzXA