Tweet

Online Advertising

Written by: Manage Your Business

Article Overview: You've managed to design your own website, round up the necessary funds, and slog through the various agreements you need to sell your wares over the Internet. You are officially a cyber seller, a net-setter, an e-tailer. Before you start promoting your product, don't forget about your friends at the Federal Trade Commission, because they certainly haven't forgotten about you. In fact, the FTC recently published a guide for online advertising called Dot Com Disclosures.

Online Advertising

Online Advertising

You've managed to design your own website, round up the necessary funds, and slog through the various agreements you need to sell your wares over the Internet. You are officially a cyber seller, a net-setter, an e-tailer. Before you start promoting your product, don't forget about your friends at the Federal Trade Commission, because they certainly haven't forgotten about you. In fact, the FTC recently published a guide for online advertising called Dot Com Disclosures.

Follow some basic points and you'll be fine:

* If your advertisement doesn't pass muster offline, don't bother posting it online.
* If there's something your customers ought to know — that the purchase price does not reflect hidden fees, for instance — disclose it.
* Make your disclosure clear and conspicuous.


The rules of conduct are, of course, only fresh until the next technological development, but the FTC has tried to make its guide as general and widely-applicable as possible. Its authority for implementing the new guidelines is derived from Section five of the Federal Trade Commission Act, which prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices." This prohibition covers:

* Advertising claims
* Marketing and promotional activities
* General sales methods


The act isn't limited by medium, either, so the commission ensures consumer protection online as well as in traditional print, television, and other communication modes. In fact, the commission has taken a number of actions over the last six years to prevent online fraud and deception.

The contents of your advertisement must comply with three basic principles:

* An ad must be truthful and not misleading.
So, if an ad is likely to mislead an average consumer and that misperception influences a customer's decision to buy or use the product, it is considered deceptive.
* Advertisers must be able to substantiate their claims.
If you're going to run an ad, you must have support for the claims the ad conveys. For example, if your ad claims that tests show xyz.com is a better search engine than cde.com, you should have some test results to back that up. If there is more than one reasonable interpretation a consumer can make, the ad has to substantiate each interpretation.
* An ad cannot be unfair.
It's unfair if, according to the FTC, it causes (or is likely to cause) serious consumer injury that couldn't have been reasonably avoided and isn't justified by the potential benefit to consumers or competition. For example, you must disclose all hidden fees. It's also considered unfair if you don't admit that you paid individuals for endorsements.


Make It Clear and Conspicuous

Much of the FTC's Dot Com Disclosures guide is devoted to a discussion of what constitutes a "clear and conspicuous" disclosure. The requirements depend on the nature of the advertisement. To determine if your ad complies, the FTC recommends adopting the perspective of a reasonable consumer and then asking yourself if the disclosure is presented in a way that you would both notice and understand.

There are a number of factors to consider, including:

* Whether a single disclosure is sufficient or whether the disclosure needs to be posted at various points throughout the site.
* Whether anything on the site distracts attention from the disclosure.
* The location of the disclosure, including where it is in relation to the advertisement (generally, you should avoid requiring customers to click on a link to read the disclaimer).
* The prominence of the disclosure.


You also need to keep in mind that competing browsers may display webpage formats differently, so the effectiveness of a particular disclosure may vary depending on the browser. The FTC links to a number of helpful examples on its website.

Use size, color, and graphics to help highlight the disclosure. There is no need for subtleties here; simply indicate that you are making a disclosure or disclaimer and list those details that the consumer needs to know.

Two final notes: first, the FTC emphasizes that its rules and guides using the terms "written" or "writing" apply online as well as offline. Second, the FTC cautions that certain advertisements sent by e-mail may be considered "direct mail advertisements" and thus be subject to certain prohibitions under the direct mail solicitation rules.

Ultimately, if you run an ad on your website that a reasonable consumer will understand and that will not deceive that consumer, you should be fine. If, however, you run an ad that is even slightly deceptive or somewhat confusing, and you fail to "clearly and conspicuously" disclose, you may have a problem.

Ari Kaplan is an attorney with McDermott, Will & Emery in New York City. His practice focuses on complex, multi-party litigation and corporate transactional matters involving new media law. He is an adjunct instructor of Internet law at Baruch College and a freelance writer on technology issues for a number of publications in the U.S. and the U.K. He can be reached at akaplan@mwe.com

Related Articles
  Is Online Advertising Cost Effective?
  The Wave Of The Future May Be Logo Imprinted Products
  TV is Dead… Long Live the Internet!
  Advertising, What's in store for 2010?
  How to Become An Expert In Online Advertising

Article Tags:



Related Forum Posts
Top 19 Copywriting books - 1. Ogilvy on Advertising. David Ogilvy. Wiley. 2. Positioning: The Battle for your Mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout. Warner. 3. The New Positioning. Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill. 4. Tested Advertising Methods. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 5. How to Make your Advertising Make Money. John Caples. Prentice-Hall. 6. Guerrilla Advertising. Jay Conrad Levinson. Houghton Mifflin. 7. Direct Mail Copy that Sells. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 8. Sales Letters that Sizzle. Herschell Gordon Lewis. NTC Business Books. 9. Herschell Gordon Lewis on the Art of Writing Copy. Herschell Gordon Lewis. Prentice-Hall. 10. Romancing the Brand. David Martin. American Management Association. 11. The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Business Books. 12. Confessions of an Advertising Man. David Ogilvy. NTC Business Books. 13. My Life in Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 14. Scientific Advertising. Claude Hopkins. NTC Business Books. 15. How to Become an Advertising Man. James Webb Young. NTC Business Books. 16. The Lasker Story as He Told It. NTC Business Books. 17. Advertising Concept and Copy. George Felton. Prentice Hall. 18. The Copy WorkShop Workbook. Bruce Bendinger. The Copy Workshop. 19. Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads. Luke Sullivan. Wiley. This should keep you busy for at least a year. Enjoy!
Re: What is your Business? - We are running a Online Marketing Firm and we have some good clients to which we are offering a complete Digital Marketing strategy like Search, Mobile Marketing, Branding and Design. I think in Online Marketing company online presence can be a wining factor for the success of the company.
Re: Kevin's Case Study #11 - A New Forum Category? - [quote:31qpen1j]This is just my opinion, but I consider the prospective categories, Online Marketing, Internet Marketing and Online Promotion, as being pretty much one and the same - just different words that different people use.[/quote:31qpen1j] I completely agree! Those are all just "internet marketing" as far as I am concerned. And I normally would have voted for internet marketing, however I chose social media marketing simply because there are more than enough IM forums out there already.
Kevin's Case Study #11 - A New Forum Category? - Hi Everyone, 2009 is a new year and I'd like to create a new forum category to jazz things up! In the past, there's been some interest voiced about adding a "Social Media Marketing", "Online Marketing", "Internet Marketing" or "Online Promotion" category. I'll implement [u:1g2tv6tf]ONE[/u:1g2tv6tf] of those new categories, but can someone first tell me what the difference would be between the existing "Marketing" section and one of those new options mentioned above? Thanks
Ideas for developing my business - Advertising is the life-blood of any magazine. Get some advertisers and you're set. You've got your target market, now start working on the "buzz" around the mag.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Environment and productivity at the office

Sales Training – Top Salespeople Are Not Dunces

Why Use an Advertising Agency

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.