Work From Home Guide: Exploring The New FTC Rules On Testimonials And Endorsements

More than a week ago, the Federal Trade Commission have announced that they have adopted the revised guidelines regarding the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising which will be effective come December 1st of this year. It has become a major topic in the blogosphere since then because of the fact that endorsements and testimonials from blogs, sites, online forums, message boards and others of the same sort are now potentially covered by the new Guides.

This issue has caused a stir in the blogging community and several bloggers have given their own takes on the subject. Some say that this new FTC Guides is actually good because it’s going to be a huge step in eliminating misleading testimonials and fake claims that are very much rampant in the Internet today specifically in E-commerce like businesses concerning weight loss and health medicines. Others point out that although they understand that these revised FTC guidelines mostly aim to bring out truthful claims, reviews, testimonials and endorsements from bloggers and advertisers, the guidelines are quite vague and have some possible chilling effect on the blogging community. Some bloggers are even doubtful on how the said Commission will implement these regulations and if it’s going to be a successful one.

If you haven’t read the new Guides, you can find it here. But since it’s an 81-page document, you might not have enough time to go through it at the moment. Just read on to learn some basic facts found on those Guides concerning testimonials and endorsements made through blogs and other similar types of media.

Endorsements are one effective way for businesses and advertisers to promote their products and services. These endorsements are not just limited to those commercials you see on television and print media or hear on the radio. The new FTC ruling now covers possible endorsements made through “consumer-generated media”. These “new media” include those blogs, websites, network marketing campaigns, online pages and forums where bloggers and affiliates publish their so-called reviews and recommendations.

When a blogger receives a freebie from a certain Internet marketer and blogs about it, that will be considered as an endorsement under the Guides and that should be disclosed to the public. The new FTC rule clearly states that, “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.”

Therefore, if you are someone whose work from home include getting free products from advertisers and writing reviews about those products, or if you are being paid to write those reviews in your blog, you should clearly and conspicuously disclosed that information. But what if you just bought a certain item and you blogged about it out of sheer joy and satisfaction and you just want to share how great that particular item was? Will that be considered as an endorsement too? According to the following example from the revised Guides, it won’t be: “Example 8: A consumer who regularly purchases a particular brand of dog food decides one day to purchase a new, more expensive brand made by the same manufacturer. She writes in her personal blog that the change in diet has made her dog’s fur noticeably softer and shinier, and that in her opinion, the new food definitely is worth the extra money. This posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides.”

For the testimonials part, bloggers, Internet marketers, people who work from home or own businesses online, will have to be very careful in using testimonials and results claims of consumers regarding their products or services because those statements should conform first with what is found in the guidelines just like the following:

“An advertisement containing an endorsement relating the experience of one or more consumers on a central or key attribute of the product or service also will likely be interpreted as representing that the endorser’s experience is representative of what consumers will generally achieve with the advertised product or service in actual, albeit variable, conditions of use. Therefore, an advertiser should possess and rely upon adequate substantiation for this representation. If the advertiser does not have substantiation that the endorser’s experience is representative of what consumers will generally achieve, the advertisement should clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected performance in the depicted circumstances, and the advertiser must possess and rely on adequate substantiation for that representation.”

Simply put, if you are not sure that the testimonials you use are showing results that consumers are generally expecting to achieve, the new FTC Guides suggest that you should disclose or state what the typical results are. Using the disclosure, “Results not typical” is also not enough according to the Guides. This goes out to results or performance claims as well wherein any claims should be “verified and substantiated.”

Those are just some of the things that gained attention from the online community and have been a hot discussion across sites, blogs and forums among online marketers and folks doing work from home. In addition to that, it has been reported that fines per violation will run up to $11,000.