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News Analysis: Calls for consumer clarification on paid for social promotions

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

January 11, 2011 | 3 min read

With the Office of Fair Trading (OFT)looking to clamp down on paid for endorsements through platforms such as Twitter, The Drum looks at the reaction to the decision.

According to a statement released yesterday by the OFT, “online advertising and marketing practices that do not disclose they include paid-for promotions are deceptive under fair trading laws. This includes comments about services and products on website blogs and microblogs such as Twitter.”

The OFT added that online promotional activity, like any traditional promotion, “must clearly identify when promotions and editorial comment have been paid for” so consumers are not misled.

Paul Fabretti, director of digital strategy at Origin Creative said that while more clarity and strategic guidelines are needed to establish what constitutes a 'deceptive' Tweet, marketers should also take more responsibility. He commented: “Lots of PR and marketing agencies have jumped on the bandwagon and consumers are not always aware that someone is promoting a product.”

Fabretti suggested that promotional hashtags could be made mandatory and that brands use blog posts to tell consumers when a paid for promotion is online. He concluded that it was the obligation of the marketer to make things clear and there was a “general lack of clarification of how promotions and competitions are anchored to social media channels.”

The OFT statement follows its investigation last year of commercial blogging network Handpicked Media, which runs a large number of blogs across numerous channels. It was criticised after it breached rules governing unfair trading by not disclosing which posts were sponsored.

Twitter rolled out its 'promoted tweets' function in April last year, allowing companies to pay to appear in user feeds. In the U.S, a celebrity endorsements company Ad.ly looks after more than 5,000 celebrities and experts to promote products such as Coke and Microsoft. Ad.ly is reportedly planning to launch its service in Britain this year.

We asked some The Drum's Twitter followers for their opinions on celebrity online product endoresments. The feedback was mixed - some stated it was inevitable, others felt it devalued Twitter:

@weareikonik said: Twitter is just another marketing platform, like TV or radio, so it's not really an issue. Spamming the product is another matter.

@ehking said: Who wants to hear a sponsored opinion? Fans want to know which moisturiser their favourite celebrity actually uses.

@FreethinkingPro said: I don't see why celebs can't endorse on twitter. Half of what twitter is about now is selling a product or a brand.

@charliesaidthat said: It should be made 100 clear that they have been paid to do so.

@interacter said: The danger with celeb PromoTweeting is that it devalues whole Twitter ethos and concept of social SHARING not social selling

@Burlisaurus said: It's inevitable - Celebrities will always provide the easiest marketing for companies & twitter is a marketing platform.

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