Alan Marcus, the senior vice president of SHIFT, and award-winning public relations practitioner, touched on important ethical issues in his lecture. Two of the problems in brand marketing today are disclosure and credibility. With the increased use of social media to promote different brands, disclosure that the influencer is getting paid to promote these brands has ceased to exist. In turn, this issue impacts the credibility of a company because consumers should have the right to know if an influencers opinion is biased. As a result, the Federal Communications Commission has cracked down on agency’s in their updated guidelines on proper ways to disclose paid relationships with influencers.
A companies main priority should be maintaining transparency between influencers and followers. As failure to disclose influenced paid relationships magnifies, scrutiny from the FCC must be taken seriously. According to the FCC’s Public Notice (2016), “In addition, the 2015 Open Internet Order reconfirmed—but did not modify—the Transparency Rule requirements around disclosure at the point of sale, requiring “at a minimum, the prominent display of disclosures on a publicly available website and disclosure of relevant information” (pg.3). The FCC understands that a firm wants to attract people with their influencers, but in some way, shape, or form, transparency to the public about favors or payments must be displayed.
According to the FCC, disclosure has increased in importance as methods of advertising have changed to fit social media. With the decline of TV viewership, their has been a steady rise in social media consumption. In a study conducted, 80% of people trusted endorsements from influencers that were popular in the media. Even with this information, endorsements are still in violation by not disclosing paid promotions or other favors. Not only does this effect the consumer, but for the influencers whose income and livelihood are at stake.
According to Eyrich and Padman (2008), “Overall, practitioners have adopted nearly six different social media tools professionally. Practitioners have clearly adopted the more established and institutional tools (e-mail, Internet), yet they also seem very comfortable with blogs and podcasts. They are slower to integrate more technologically complicated tools that cater to a niche audience (e.g., text messaging, social networks, virtual worlds)” (pg. 414). It is apparent that PR practitioners would like to follow the status quo, and follow the trends of their audience. But, that does not excuse a lack of ethical practices.
Companies like Lord & Taylor and Warner Bros. have fallen subject to “misbehaving” and breaking the rules and as a result, significant fines have been levied. As companies move forward, they should continue to keep disclosure a main priority, as honesty and accuracy go way beyond money. There are proper ways to disclose paid relationships with influencers while abiding by the rules and preserving quality in the content. Marcus mentioned the need for brands to embrace the hashtag as a way to utilize modern day tactics to carry on with traditional advertising methods.
References
Enyrich, Padman, PR practitioners’ use of social media tools and communication technology [Review 34]. (2008). 412-414.
Federal Communications Commission,GUIDANCE ON OPEN INTERNET TRANSPARENCY RULE REQUIREMENTS [Public Notice]. (2016). 1-11.