Poland

[PL] Recommendations of the President of UOKiK concerning the tagging, by influencers, of advertising content on social media

IRIS 2022-9:1/1

Marta Botiuk-Filip

The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection in Poland (UOKiK) has recently released the long-awaited "Recommendations of the President of UOKiK concerning the tagging, by influencers, of advertising content on social media".

The proper tagging of sponsored content on social media has raised quite a lot of questions. So far, the most difficult issues have been drawing the line between the subjective opinions of social media users and paid communications, as well as the transparent forms of tagging commercial collaborations. In order to develop clear guidelines for the correct tagging of content from December 2021 onwards, there has been extensive consultation on this subject.

The "Recommendations of the President of UOKiK on the tagging, by influencers, of advertising content on social media" is a document that has long been awaited, not only by influencers but also by advertisers, PR agencies and consumers. The document was developed following several months of joint consultations with representatives of the influencer marketing industry, as well as in the academic field.

What do we find in the recommendations?

The proposed recommendations present more than 30 pages of guidelines for marking advertising content online. The recommendations contain a number of practical  examples and graphical proposals, and have been drawn up to assist online creators to correctly tag their commercial content.

In this document we find not only important definitions and legal regulations but also characteristics of individual commercial collaborations and explicitly indicated ways of tagging commercial content on social media, depending on the type of collaboration.

Additionally, the recommendations describe a specific form of commercial content, i.e. self-promotion (advertising one's own brand).

The document also specifies how to correctly tag PR packages received, with particular attention to whether the gift received is a low-value gift; whether it is the first time the influencer has received it from a brand; or whether it is another such gift that influencer intends to share with the online world.

The recommendations also include a precise definition of what exactly the tagging of advertisements should look like, proposing two-level tagging. The UOKiK indicates that influencers should tag advertising material they publish on their social media channels in a clear, unambiguous manner that is understandable for all recipients. In addition, the document provides examples of advertising terms that are not recommended and should be avoided.

As a supplement to the recommendations, UOKiK made available, free of charge, a special tool that may be relied upon to tag advertisements, self-promoting materials or gifts on Instagram or Facebook. The tool has the special form of an AR filter and is now available on UOKiK's Instagram profile, where it can be saved and used at any time.