Advertising Law Tool Kit - Tenth Edition | 2022

Venable / 81 When using endorsements or testimonials to market your product or service, you should ask yourself the following important questions: • Does the endorsement fail to accurately represent the endorser’s experience with the product? • Is the endorser’s experience typical of what a user of the product or service can expect? • Was a non-celebrity endorser aware of the possibility of payment prior to making the endorsement? Were they supplied with free product or some other benefit, such as a discount or entry into a sweepstakes? • Celebrity endorsers do not need to disclose payment in recognized advertising, but is it clear that the endorsement is an ad? For example, a celebrity tweet may not be perceived as an ad. For further discussion of endorsements and social media, see the next section. • Do you or does your organization have an undisclosed relationship with the endorser that could lead to possible bias (e.g., a family member or an employee)? • If your endorser is an “expert” with respect to the product or service, did he/she fail to actually evaluate the product or service? • If you are soliciting, posting, and/or aggregating customer reviews, are you doing so in a way that does not mischaracterize the nature of your customers’ feedback?