Why Should Marketers be Paying Attention to the FTC Endorsement Guidelines

As we highlighted in a former blog post,  the FTC released a brochure aimed at providing greater clarity to the Endorsement Guides (“guidelines”) for brands and social media influencers in December of last year. The guidelines, originally enacted in 1980, were last amended in 2009 as part of an agency-wide review of FTC practices. On February 12, 2020, the FTC announced they would be seeking public comment on whether to update the existing guidelines. This effort was characterized by FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra as a “self critical” analysis of the agency’s current enforcement approach.

We talked to attorney Jamie Rubin about what these guidelines mean and why brands need to pay close attention.