SLK revises principles due to influencer marketing
Because the current guidelines provide loopholes for influencers, the Fair Trading Commission intends to revise the established rules.
In July, on the other hand, the Fairness Commission had approved two complaints from consumer protection in the first ever rulings on influencer advertising in Switzerland. Snowboarder Iouri Podladtchikov and mountain biker Jolanda Neff had engaged in unfair surreptitious advertising on the Instagram platform.
Snowboarder Podladtchikov had his picture taken in the entrance of a clothing store. Cyclist Neff distributed a post from a credit card company.
The relatively young genre of advertising influencers poses challenges for the Fairness Commission. What is illegal surreptitious advertising, what is correctly declared, what is paid advertising, what are private posts without an advertising background?
How the SonntagsZeitung writes in its current issue, SLK is now taking action and adapting the formulated principles in at least one case next week. Until now, these were mostly designed for classic editorial content - print and television. Accordingly, the SLK demands a clear separation of information and advertising. Specifically, there is talk of "separation between editorial information and commercial communication".
Such principles are not very handy for bringing cases to the Social media to be judged. There, influencers do not create any actual editorial content. The formulated separation is too narrow, says SLK spokesman Thomas Meier, to the SonntagsZeitung. The term "editorial information" should give way to a more comprehensive formulation such as "content" or "conent".
"We don't care in which medium a content or commercial communication is posted. We simply want to protect consumers from being misled," says Meier.
The main aim here is to protect a younger audience. Social media are among the most important sources of information for young people; YouTube and Instagram stars are role models and have a correspondingly great power. This is where the SLK wants to pick up. It also wants to create awareness for the responsibility of influencers, says Meier.
