Endorsement Guides: The FTC wants your feedback

Does your company use endorsements in your advertising? Or perhaps you endorse other companies’ products. Then you’ll want to follow the FTC’s just-announced regulatory review of its Endorsement Guides.

Every ten years or so, the FTC puts each of its rules and guides under the microscope. What’s the current state of the marketplace? What impact has the rule or guide had on consumers and businesses? Have there been changes in technology that warrant a closer look? Next on the regulatory review roster are the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising and the FTC invites you to weigh in.

In place since 1980 and revised in 2009, the Endorsement Guides offer guidance to businesses and others about how established FTC advertising principles apply in this form of marketing. You’ll want to read the Federal Register Notice for a list of questions we’ve posed. One area of particular interest is the Guides’ requirement that material connections – connections between an endorser and a seller of a product that could affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement – must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed.

Once the Notice appears in the Federal Register, you’ll have 60 days to file a public comment.