Reading Between the Blurred Lines

The Federal Trade Commission recently released a Staff Report regarding consumer recognition of native and search advertising entitled “Blurred Lines”, summarizing its findings from its self-styled “exploratory research”. Unsurprisingly, the FTC concluded that the use of disclosures consistent with prior FTC guidance increased the likelihood that consumers would recognize online ads as ads. The FTC’s testing consisted of taking samples of search and native advertising (4 of each, half on desktop implementations and half on mobile displays) and making changes to the pages to improve the ad disclosures (for example, by changing the term “Sponsored” to “Ad”, changing the colors and fonts of the disclosures, and changing background shading). Results were assessed on the basis of observations of 48 participants and eye tracking data. While the observations confirmed an increase in ad recognition, even with such disclosures, a…

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