Rimon acts as counsel to many of the advertising industry’s leading trade and membership associations – The Association of National Advertisers, The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, to name only a few. As you may have notices, a recent Legal Bytes blog post noted that just last month the FTC supplemented its December 2007 “Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising” report.
Well the FTC has been busy in re-examining it’s policies regarding testimonials and endorsements in this digital age. As previously reported in Legal Bytes, the FTC indicated it was revising it’s Testimonial and Endorsement Guides (the first time since the 1980s). Well comments have now been submitted and we strongly recommend that anyone in the advertising and marketing business take a look at some of them. In fact, to help you, Legal Bytes has a couple you can look at right now – Comments for The Association of National Advertisers and Comments for The Word of Mouth Marketing Association – and when you finish reading them ask yourself:
- Now that public comments are in, what do we think will happen?
- What is in front of the FTC that might affect its decision making?
- How would self-regulation differ from the way the FTC has been operating?
- What does the new FTC Chairman think about self-regulation?
- Do we expect the new administration to shift direction? If so, which way?
- How is all this likely to affect advertising and marketing using product placements, branded entertainment, blogs, consumer generated content, buzz, viral and word of mouth marketing?
If you need to know, you need to contact John Feldman, Douglas Wood or Joseph Rosenbaum – or your favorite Rimon attorney – who will be more than happy to help you.