New Rules Say UK Video Bloggers Must Be Clearer About Paid Endorsements

AmiMoJo writes: New guidelines for video bloggers who enter marketing relationships with brands have been published. Earlier this year the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that paid endorsements for Oreo biscuits on YouTube were not marked clearly enough. The new rules outline several scenarios where content must be clearly marked as an advertisement. One note from the linked article: 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.

Comments

Re:Following similar scandals in the US

[known_coward_69]

it's not the reviewers, it's hyping the games for months before release to get people to pre-order at retail or download a copy so they can play the very second it goes live. and then let the idiots beta test the software while you fix it.

Re:Following similar scandals in the US

[houghi]

It is a combination of things and one does not exlude the other. Rather it enforces the other.

And even if they are not told that they have to tell how great it is, they will, because otherwise the companies stop sending them free stuff.

If you see how elaborate some of these free packages are, it is clear that they are to impress the people with the box more than what is on the inside.

The vloggers need those free gifts so they get more viewers, so they get more money from ads.

That this works, you can see with Linus Tech Tips who just moved to a new warehouse with a staf of 7 or 8 people.

At least he is pretty honest about it, so that is nice.

Apathetic Standards Atrophying

[Blue Stone]

If you ignore the ASA or tell them to fuck off, they will do bad things, like ... um ... post on their website that you have told them to fuck off.

They might also take out an advertisement on Google so someone sees a message when they do a search for your blog/business/youtube channel indicating that you've told them to fuck off.

I think people should be clear when they show sponsored products, that's about basic integrity and ethics, but the ASA can make bad decisions. They aren't a government body. You can tell them to fuck off if you want to. The worst thing they'll do in many cases is tell people that you've told them to fuck off.