Disclosure rules for brands and creators
If you gave a creator anything of value — money, free product, a discount, a trip, a job — the resulting post has to say so. The rule is not complicated. What catches brands out is that they are liable for their creators' disclosures, not only their own.
The rule in one sentence
A material connection between a brand and an endorser must be disclosed clearly and conspicuously in the endorsement itself.
Both halves carry weight. The FTC's revised Endorsement Guides, announced in June 2023, define "clear and conspicuous" as unavoidable — difficult to miss and readily understandable by the ordinary members of the audience it is aimed at.
What counts as a material connection
Broader than people assume. It includes:
- Payment of any size, including affiliate commission
- Free or discounted product, even unsolicited
- Travel, tickets, meals, accommodation
- Employment — an employee posting about their employer's product
- A family or personal relationship with the brand or its staff
- Entry into a competition or prize draw in exchange for posting
Gifting is the one that surprises brands most often. Sending a product with no obligation still creates a material connection, so a creator who posts about it must disclose — and that obligation should be in the note that ships with the product.
What a compliant disclosure looks like
Sufficient
- "#ad" or "#sponsored" at the start of the caption, above the fold
- "Paid partnership with [brand]" spoken aloud in a video
- On-screen text that stays long enough to read
- "[Brand] sent me this for free" said in the first few seconds
- Disclosure repeated in a long video, not only at the top
Not sufficient
- "#sp", "#spon", "#collab", "#ambassador" — abbreviations readers may not decode
- "Thanks @brand!" — gratitude is not disclosure
- A hashtag buried after twenty others, or behind "more"
- Disclosure only in a YouTube description nobody opens
- A platform's built-in label on its own
- Disclosure in a Story frame that lasts under a second
On platform tools
Instagram's paid partnership label, YouTube's paid promotion checkbox and TikTok's branded content toggle are all necessary and not sufficient. Each platform requires them under its own policies, and the FTC has indicated that a built-in label may not by itself meet the clear-and-conspicuous standard — it is easy to miss and its meaning is not obvious to every viewer. Use the tool and disclose in the content.
What each platform requires
These sit on top of the legal obligation, not instead of it.
| Platform | Required tool | Also do this |
|---|---|---|
| Paid partnership label, tagging the brand partner | #ad at the front of the caption; say it aloud in Reels | |
| TikTok | Branded content toggle | #ad in the caption and spoken or on-screen in the video |
| YouTube | "Contains paid promotion" checkbox | Verbal disclosure in the first seconds; repeat before a long integration |
| Branded content tool, tagging the partner | #ad visible without expanding the post | |
| Twitch / live | No universal tool | Say it on stream and repeat it — viewers arrive mid-broadcast |
Who is liable
Advertisers and endorsers both. A brand cannot hire its way out of the obligation: if a creator you paid posts without adequate disclosure, that is your compliance problem as well as theirs. Agencies sit in the same exposure, which is why a competent one will not let a campaign go live without disclosure written into the brief and the contract.
This is a fair question to ask any agency you are considering — and one worth asking early, because the answer tells you a lot about how they run campaigns. More questions worth asking.
A brand-side checklist
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Put disclosure in the contract
Specify the exact wording, where it must appear, and that payment depends on it.
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Put it in the brief too
Contracts get signed by managers; briefs get read by the person filming.
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Check posts on the day
A missing disclosure is trivial to fix in the first hour and a problem after a week.
Ask who on the agency side is doing this check, by name.
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Include gifting
Seeding lists are where undisclosed posts actually originate, because nobody thinks of unpaid product as a campaign.
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Keep the records
Screenshots of live posts, dated. Reconstructing what a deleted Story said is not possible after the fact.
Keep reading
Creator tiers
Nano to mega, what each tier costs, and why engagement falls as audience grows.
Campaign types
Gifting, paid posts, affiliate, whitelisting, ambassadors and takeovers — and when each one fits.
Pricing
Creator rates by tier, how agencies charge on top, and where budgets actually go.
Measurement
Reach, engagement, EMV and conversions — which numbers mean something and which flatter.
Choosing an agency
What to ask, what the answers should sound like, and the terms that matter in the contract.