Endorsements & Testimonials

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Another new year begun, so it’s time for retailers to revisit advertising and marketing law compliance strategies to avoid class actions, regulatory enforcement actions, and competitor challenges. We share our picks for the top five U.S. marketing law topics that deserve your attention in 2023.

The new Self-Regulatory Guidelines for Children’s Advertising (the Guidelines) issued by the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) went into effect on January 1, 2022. The Guidelines apply to advertising that is primarily directed at children under the age of 13 in any medium. CARU will monitor child-directed advertising and media for compliance with the Guidelines…

Key Takeaways:

  • The Children’s Advertising Review Unit has released new guidelines for children’s advertising, moving beyond traditional TV advertising, to address a broader range of digital advertising issues.
  • The updated Guidelines go into effect on January 1, 2022 and apply to advertising that is primarily directed to children under age 13 in any medium or content.

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Continue Reading CARU Updates Children’s Advertising Guidelines

While regulator actions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have understandably received the bulk of consumer protection headlines in recent months, influencer marketing remains a hot topic for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and National Advertising Division (NAD). As we continue into the latter half of 2020, we recap key enforcement actions, press releases, guidance, and letters related to endorsements and influencer marketing that brands may have missed during the pandemic.
Continue Reading Check in on Influencer Marketing

On July 31, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the outgoing FDA commissioner, published an editorial in which he proposed how the FDA could expedite approval of food and beverage products that contain cannabidiol (CBD).           

In this update, we review Dr. Gottlieb’s proposal which highlights areas of concern for business involved in the CBD industry, such as labeling …

On the heels of three FTC consent decrees involving the Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA), the FTC has brought two more CRFA-related complaints against home-rental businesses.

Broadly speaking, the CRFA, which became effective in 2017, makes it unlawful for a business to prohibit its customers from being able to post negative reviews online. As predicted, we are seeing an increase in FTC enforcement of the CRFA in 2019.
Continue Reading FTC Enforcement of the CRFA is Underway

In 2016, UrthBox, Inc., a subscription-based service sending monthly snack boxes to customers, had only nine reviews on the Better Business Bureau’s website and all of them were negative. By 2017 UrthBox had 695 BBB reviews, 612 of which were positive.

According to a complaint from the FTC however, the cascade of positive reviews was the result of an incentivized review program. Specifically, in 2017 UrthBox offered to send customers an incentive (a free snack box) in exchange for submitting a positive review for UrthBox on the BBB website. However, the BBB requires customers submitting reviews to affirm they have not been provided any incentive from the business they are reviewing. UrthBox also offered incentives for customers who posted about their products on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook but, according to the FTC, UrthBox did not monitor or provide instructions to consumers on how to comply with the FTC’s Guidelines on endorsement disclosures. Those Guidelines put the onus on businesses to make sure that customers posting reviews sufficiently disclose any compensation received from the business.
Continue Reading Incentivized Review and Free Trial Practices Draw the Ire of the FTC

It’s been a busy year in consumer protection law and during this holiday season, we’re taking stock of the past year and looking ahead to what’s next.  In 2018, we saw many class actions related to pricing practices, scrutiny of Made in USA claims, continued growth in popularity and the evolution of influencers (…