Warner Bros. settles FTC claims of paid YouTuber endorsements

[Crown]

Extract from article:

"
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC” or “Commission”) announced that it has reached a settlement with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (“Warner Bros.”) over charges of deceptive advertising in connection with alleged paid YouTuber endorsements for a Warner Bros. video game.


In 2014, Warner Bros. purportedly hired Plaid Social Labs, LLC (“Plaid Social”) to coordinate a YouTube influencer (“YouTuber”) endorsement campaign around the release of its video game – Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor.

According to FTC records, Plaid Social provided a pre-release version of the video game, and payments ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars each, to an undisclosed number of YouTubers who had earned reputations as video game enthusiasts, including infamous Swedish YouTuber “PewDiePie.” The Commission alleges that the subject YouTubers were contractually obligated to post videos promoting the game, and required to share the videos on their respective Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Approximately thirty gameplay videos (viewed over 5.5 million times) were posted as a result of Warner Bros.’ YouTuber endorsement campaign."

Source and full article: http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=d58719a5-e163-41f8-a489-ad034931a891



It is interesting that the FTC went after Warner Bros and not the YouTubers themselves. I don't believe for a second that those big name YouTubers didn't know what they doing.

Thoughts?

 

[Amicable Invader]

I think Pewdiepie made a video on this. He appeared to say he had put in his video description that he had been paid for it. Maybe the rest never thought it would be found out. Its quite possible that by going after Warner Bros that future companies will insist that the video is announced in video that it is a paid endorsement.

 

[Shane]

It is interesting that the FTC went after Warner Bros and not the YouTubers themselves. I don't believe for a second that those big name YouTubers didn't know what they doing.

Thoughts?

I find it a bit harder to believe that for some reason they targeted Warner Bros. rather than the company coordinating the campaign (Plaid Social Labs) which seems unusual and the opposite of the actions they took last year in the similar (Creators not disclosing) Microsoft/Xbox/Machinima case when they went after Machinima, the company organising it, not the brand behind it.

Going after the YouTubers wouldn't be as much use, for a first time offence the FTC tends to just give warnings and they'd have a hard time proving the creators knew they were at fault though I do agree, I would guess the likes of Pewdiepie was well aware of how he was meant to handle disclosure. Funnily enough he has since made a video about this saying he did disclose it (near the bottom of the video's description - the FTC says that in nearly all cases branded content in YouTube videos requires a verbal statement in the video before the branded segment starts and even putting it at the top of the description without a verbal mention isn't good enough).

 

[Michael]

I think there needs to be clearer guidelines so people understand better for example is getting products for free to feature in your videos at no cost to the company and not mentioning that they were for free necessary for people to mention or does this only apply when you have actually been paid to feature their products.

There are countless questions I keep seeing people ask and wonder about so clearly people arent very well informed on the subject, neither am I but I would love to learn the specifics of product placement, branding integration etc.

I would have expected the same unless Warner Bros told them specifically to not mention they were paid or whatever in the material/info they sent them for promoting the products.[DOUBLEPOST=1469364812,1469364733][/DOUBLEPOST]I am also curious how they find out unless someone reports it to the FTC when they are suspicious of it.