Truth-in-Advertising 101
Advertising’s purpose is to convince consumers to buy the advertiser’s product or service. While advertising is often creative and fun, it can also sometimes cross the line into false advertising that misleads consumers and distorts fair competition. The law requires that advertisers tell the truth.
This educational resource library shares advertising law basics, including common terms like ‘puffery,’ and helps to draw the line between truthful and misleading advertising.
Basics Videos
This playlist includes multiple videos outlining some advertising law basics. Want to take a deeper dive? Learn more about each 101 advertising law topic by listening to the coordinating Ad Watchers episode.
Who Makes the Rules?
Truth In Advertising: The Basics Playlist
Watch them one-by-one or select the ad law topics most relevant to you. Watch the full playlist below or on YouTube here.
The Ad Watchers
The monthly Ad Watchers podcast, brought to you by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs, provides listeners with behind-the-scenes access to the nitty-gritty of advertising law. Why? Because advertising law is simple, it’s the execution that’s hard.
NAD attorneys break down common advertising practices to reveal the complexity of keeping claims truthful and accurate. Hosts will answer questions like, ‘what makes a disclosure easy to notice, read, and understand?’ and ‘where is the line between opinion and fact?’ with real-life case examples from NAD.
SUBSCRIBE WHEREVER YOU LISTEN TO PODCASTS OR LISTEN ON YOUTUBE.
Season #1
- Ep. 1: Who’s making these advertising rules?
- Ep. 2: What does it mean to have a reasonable basis?
- Ep. 3: What’s the recipe for a proper advertising disclosure?
- Ep. 4: How do we step into the shoes of the consumer?
- Ep. 5: The best podcast ever – what is puffery?
- Ep. 6: When are advertisers responsible for consumer ratings and reviews?
- Ep. 7: What evidence do you need to support health claims?
Season #2
- Ep. 1: How can you avoid the grey areas of green claims?
- Ep. 2: How do you get consumer perception surveys right?
- Ep. 3: What should you consider before making cosmetic claims?
- Ep. 4: How should you present scientific evidence to support your ad claims?
- Ep. 6: How is direct selling advertising different?
- Ep. 7: Where is the line between ethical design and dark patterns?
Season #3
- Ep. 1 : Are you taking care of your health (claims)?
- Ep. 2: It’s not easy being green. What’s next in ESG?
- Ep. 3: It’s not puffery. Do you have the evidence to be #1?
- Ep. 4: A different playing field. Advertising to kids is different?
- Ep. 5: The NAD Top 10 — Did you know?
- Ep. 6: What is the appeal of an appeal? Getting to know NARB
Tips and Advice from NAD
The National Advertising Division wants to help you navigate advertising law. We share our insights with tips, guidance, and case trends to help you address the advertising challenges you face.
5 Tips for Truthful and Transparent Influencer Marketing and Product Reviews
BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division is dedicated to truth-in-advertising. To help you ensure that your influencer marketing and the use of product reviews in your advertising are both transparent and truthful, we offer the following five tips:
1. When working with influencers or incentivizing consumers to review your product, you may be responsible for the content of their posts.
Influencer posts that promote products because of a relationship with a brand may be viewed differently than the same content that is posted organically. As a result, the FTC has made clear that disclosure of material connections is required.
Similarly, incentivized reviews may be viewed differently than organic reviews, so it is important that reviewers who received incentives to post a review note that an incentive was provided for a review. The FTC has also made clear that brands may be responsible if those posts do not have the required disclosures.
2. Tell influencers or consumers to disclose their material connection with you and monitor them to make sure they do.
In working with influencers or incentivizing product reviews, best practices require that brands have policies in place that:
- Require disclosure of material connections,
- Notify the influencer or reviewer of the requirement to disclose material connections, and
- Monitor posts to make sure that disclosures are being made.
3. Disclosures should be in plain, easily understandable language.
When reviewing disclosure of material connections, make sure that the content of the disclosure is understandable to consumers. The simple ubiquitous use of #ad is short and transparent but other disclosures may or may not be understood by consumers.
For example, our advertising self-regulatory forum determined that the disclosure that an influencer was “hosted” by the brand did not adequately identify the nature of the relationship. Other contextual disclosures like "I really love the free products X brand provided" are simple and understandable to consumers and therefore effective.
4. Make sure the disclosure is readable or audible at the same time as the endorsement message.
Disclosures should always be in close proximity to the claim that they qualify. Material connection disclosures in influencer marketing are subject to the same rule so the disclosure should be viewable in the same frame as the post if the post is visual. If the post is audio, the audio disclosure should be heard together with the endorsement message and not relegated to a part of the audio that consumers might miss.
Additionally, influencer posts are often shared and may not always be seen in their original context. Make sure that the required disclosures travel with the endorsement. With the new use of TikTok for influencer marketing, take special care to ensure that the required disclosure travels with the TikTok video if it is posted to other platforms.
5. When interacting with influencers or consumers reviewing your product, make sure you are not conveying a misleading message.
All advertising must be truthful and that is true when working with influencers to market a product or service. Though an influencer’s language about a product may be more colorful than typical brand advertising, work with influencers to make sure that their post does not cross the line and make claims about the product that are not supported.
Similarly, if consumers review your product online and make objective claims about benefits of your product that are not supported, take care not to interact with those reviews in a way that suggests the product has that benefit. Consider removing reviews that make unsubstantiated claims about objective product benefits.
In the same way that brands have policies for removing offensive reviews, policies could also mandate the removal of false or misleading reviews. Removing unfavorable reviews while only posting favorable reviews also conveys a misleading message about typical consumer reactions to your product.
In general, we recommend that you adopt clear policies for influencer marketing and the use of product reviews in your advertising, and monitor for compliance with those policies. The result will be a more truthful, transparent marketplace for consumers.
5 Tips for Truthful and Transparent Influencer Marketing and Product Reviews
BBB National Programs’ National Advertising Division is dedicated to truth-in-advertising. To help you ensure that your influencer marketing and the use of product reviews in your advertising are both transparent and truthful, we offer the following five tips:
1. When working with influencers or incentivizing consumers to review your product, you may be responsible for the content of their posts.
Influencer posts that promote products because of a relationship with a brand may be viewed differently than the same content that is posted organically. As a result, the FTC has made clear that disclosure of material connections is required.
Similarly, incentivized reviews may be viewed differently than organic reviews, so it is important that reviewers who received incentives to post a review note that an incentive was provided for a review. The FTC has also made clear that brands may be responsible if those posts do not have the required disclosures.
2. Tell influencers or consumers to disclose their material connection with you and monitor them to make sure they do.
In working with influencers or incentivizing product reviews, best practices require that brands have policies in place that:
- Require disclosure of material connections,
- Notify the influencer or reviewer of the requirement to disclose material connections, and
- Monitor posts to make sure that disclosures are being made.
3. Disclosures should be in plain, easily understandable language.
When reviewing disclosure of material connections, make sure that the content of the disclosure is understandable to consumers. The simple ubiquitous use of #ad is short and transparent but other disclosures may or may not be understood by consumers.
For example, our advertising self-regulatory forum determined that the disclosure that an influencer was “hosted” by the brand did not adequately identify the nature of the relationship. Other contextual disclosures like "I really love the free products X brand provided" are simple and understandable to consumers and therefore effective.
4. Make sure the disclosure is readable or audible at the same time as the endorsement message.
Disclosures should always be in close proximity to the claim that they qualify. Material connection disclosures in influencer marketing are subject to the same rule so the disclosure should be viewable in the same frame as the post if the post is visual. If the post is audio, the audio disclosure should be heard together with the endorsement message and not relegated to a part of the audio that consumers might miss.
Additionally, influencer posts are often shared and may not always be seen in their original context. Make sure that the required disclosures travel with the endorsement. With the new use of TikTok for influencer marketing, take special care to ensure that the required disclosure travels with the TikTok video if it is posted to other platforms.
5. When interacting with influencers or consumers reviewing your product, make sure you are not conveying a misleading message.
All advertising must be truthful and that is true when working with influencers to market a product or service. Though an influencer’s language about a product may be more colorful than typical brand advertising, work with influencers to make sure that their post does not cross the line and make claims about the product that are not supported.
Similarly, if consumers review your product online and make objective claims about benefits of your product that are not supported, take care not to interact with those reviews in a way that suggests the product has that benefit. Consider removing reviews that make unsubstantiated claims about objective product benefits.
In the same way that brands have policies for removing offensive reviews, policies could also mandate the removal of false or misleading reviews. Removing unfavorable reviews while only posting favorable reviews also conveys a misleading message about typical consumer reactions to your product.
In general, we recommend that you adopt clear policies for influencer marketing and the use of product reviews in your advertising, and monitor for compliance with those policies. The result will be a more truthful, transparent marketplace for consumers.
Case Digests
Each digest includes BBB National Programs case summaries, organized by topic. These Digests are updated annually with new cases.
Learning from Cases
Advertising law case decisions are packed with information. Each case decision contains real-world guidance on important advertising issues. Read case summaries in the Case Decision Library for up-to-date guidance on advertising law. Want a deeper dive? Subscribe to the Online Archive to access full legal decisions with detailed guidance spanning decades of case decisions across our programs.
Formal Guidance
The best way to avoid issues with advertising law is to follow the rules.
Guidelines for Advertising to Children
Guidelines for Food and Beverage Advertising to Children
Guidance on Direct-Selling Earnings Claims