THE ANTITRUST AUTHORITY TAKES A STAND ON INFLUENCER MARKETING

26/07/2017

The Antitrust Authority issued a press release last 24 July communicating that it had sent some moral suasion letters to operators who carry out online sponsorship via the technique known as influencer marketing. The Authority invited such persons to comply with the provisions of the Consumer Code.

 

The Antitrust Authority has declared that it carried out investigations concerning the sponsorship of products, an activity known as influencer marketing.

Such commercial practice involves publication on blogs, vlogs and other social media (such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, MySpace, and so on) by internet personalities having many followers (known as bloggers or influencers)  of images related to products that may be traced to a given brand without, however, the influencer expressing the advertising nature of such communication, in such a way that the followers are subjected to what is a true form of sponsorship of a product grounded on the private and personal experience of the influencer.

The first step taken by the Antitrust Authority appears to be that of encouraging both the influencer and the companies that own the sponsored trademarks to provide adequate information at the time of publication of the contents that would reveal the commercial nature of the communication (which would be the case both when product placement occurs upon payment as well as when the products are freely provided).

The request put forward with the moral suasion letters is that operators should conform to the general rules provided by the Consumer Code, according to which advertisements must be recognisable as such so that the commercial purpose of the communication is clearly perceived by the consumer. The Authority declared that with influencer marketing the promotional purpose will have to be made clear via the insertion of specific warnings which, in line with the communication procedures applied within social media, may for example consist of hashtags such as #advertising, #sponsored, #paidinsertion and #providedby followed by the name of the sponsored brand.