NAD Reviews Social Media Endorsements
In a case of first impression, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (NAD) – the advertising industry’s self-regulatory forum – considered social media promotions, social media endorsements, and what it means when a company advertises that Facebook users “like” it. Specifically, NAD evaluated (1) an advertiser’s offer for “free glasses” to people who “like” the advertiser’s product (which NAD termed a “like-gated” promotion), and (2) the advertiser’s statements about how many people “like” its products. NAD investigated the statements made by Coastal Contacts, Inc., after a competitor, 1-800 Contacts, filed a challenge with NAD.
With respect to Facebook “likes,” NAD determined:
- The overall message conveyed by Facebook ‘like” or the total number of “likes” on Facebook constitutes a general social endorsement;
- Coastal Contact did have the general social endorsement the “likes” conveyed because actual consumers had “liked” the Coastal Contacts page and no evidence suggested those consumers who participated in the like-gated “free glasses” promotion did not receive the benefit of the promotion;
- Had the evidence demonstrated that consumers who participated in the like-gated promotion could not or did not receive the benefit of the offer, or that the advertiser used misleading or artificial means to inflate the number of Facebook “likes,” the outcome of the case would not have been as favorable to the company;
- Coastal Contacts should clarify that its representations about the number of Facebook “fans” or “likes” indicate totals from all of its Facebook pages targeted to different countries, in order to avoid conveying the unsupported claim that the U.S. Facebook page alone had obtained such a high number of “fans” and “likes.”
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here for our alert on NAD’s determinations on the Coastal Contacts challenge.
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