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This article aims to examine the US history of practices that mask the marketing content of messages to consumers and of the public policy approaches taken towards such practices.

This research examines both primary sources such as legal challenges and contemporary writings as well as secondary sources.

The US legal/regulatory system has been examining practices that mask the marketing content of communications for over 125 years. Fully masked messages were initially regulated under postal service laws and publisher self‐regulatory codes. Partially masked messages, e.g. testimonials, were examined first by courts and later by regulatory and industry self‐regulatory agencies. These diverse sources of regulation led to diverse approaches and in part explain the modern preference for information disclosure over prohibiting the masking of marketing messages.

Modern analysis of these practices ignores their history and the historical evolution of their regulation. This article not only reveals a rich regulatory history, but also suggests that modern policy should treat the broad array of masking practices consistently and correct current policy approaches that are based on historical development rather than modern public policy analysis and concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how a change to a US policy about product testimonials affected bloggers and to understand bloggers’ perceptions of the organization-blogger relationship (OBR).

This study utilizes a survey (n=173) with closed and open-ended questions, and both quantitative and qualitative data are analyzed.

Bloggers’ decisions to accept compensation for a review may influence how much control they feel they have over the OBR. Qualitative data indicate that even as bloggers seek access to products to review, they prefer to maintain editorial control over the review process.

The study extends the transparency literature in public relations and relationship management theory by exploring the relationship between bloggers and public relations professionals through the lens of a disclosure policy.

Recommendations are offered for public relations professionals in how to maintain transparent relationships with bloggers.

Qualitative data reveal concern among bloggers about efforts to persuade them and what they should disclose; this may impact the trust that consumers have in reviews at blogs.

The study demonstrates the effects of review behaviors on the OBR and offers an organic explanation of how this relationship evolves. This is important as consumers are increasingly consulting blogs for product information. This issue also has relevance to public relations professionals, who are encouraged to broach the issue of transparency with bloggers.

The dynamic landscape of healthcare has seen significant changes in marketing by the various types of healthcare providers. This research aims to explore the impact of emotions in healthcare advertising.

Two consumer panel experiments investigate the role of hope and empathy appeals in fostering positive evaluations toward healthcare providers (medical centers for serious illnesses).

Study 1 shows that two types of emotion-based healthcare appeals are more effective than non-emotional appeals. Study 2 compares the relative effectiveness of hope versus empathy appeals with medical expert or typical person (patient) testimonials.

Findings demonstrate that in a healthcare context, an expert testimonial enhanced the persuasiveness of a hope-based appeal, whereas testimonials from unknown patients were not effective.

Understanding the role of emotions in healthcare advertising is increasingly important as healthcare providers compete on care and quality outcomes and advertising agencies vie for the attention of consumers.

This study aims to examine the effects of different types of endorsers (expert vs consumer vs celebrity) in testimonial vs non-testimonial message contexts on consumers’ responses toward direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA).

An online experiment was conducted with a 3 (endorser type: expert vs consumer vs celebrity) × 2 (message type: testimonial vs non-testimonial) plus control group (no endorser, no testimonial) factorial design to assess the various dependent variables.

Perceived source credibility and similarity was significantly different across the endorser types, and the expert endorser (i.e. a doctor) generated the highest mean level of source credibility, while consumer endorsers generate the highest mean source similarity. The interaction of endorser type and message type significantly impacted ad believability and skepticism. Specifically, the endorser type factor had a significant impact on the dependent variables only in the testimonial ad condition, but not in the non-testimonial ad condition. The effects were mediated by source credibility.

While the focused results show celebrities may not be the strongest choice to endorse when using testimonials, the overall lack of main effect of testimonials lends to the possibility of a plateauing of effects with the various appeals used in DTC ads. DTCA has now been around for over 20 years, and this study lends to the possibility consumers are becoming unaffected by the various appeals used by pharmaceutical manufactures and only respond when a multitude of personally relevant factors are in place.

The purpose of this article is to examine the US history of advertising regulation, both formal and informal and public and private – particularly focused on advertising that is likely to mislead consumers about attributes, characteristics or performance of advertised products.

This research examines both primary sources such as legal challenges and contemporary writings as well as secondary sources.

Although early court decisions were reluctant to find advertising to be dishonest, the Post Office was the first government agency to challenge blatantly false advertisements through criminal prosecution. At the end of the 1800s, the nascent advertising industry developed an interest in regulating truthfulness to enhance advertising credibility. It proposed a model state criminal code and advertising clubs, followed by local Better Business Bureaus, began to informally resolve advertising dispute. In 1914, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was established with authority to prevent unfair methods of competition which it used to challenge advertising that was likely to injure competitors. This authority was later expanded to cover advertising that was likely to mislead consumers regardless of competitive injury. The FTC experimented with trade association advertising provisions and expanding its concepts and tools overtime until a period of retrenchment in the 1980s that set the foundations of modern advertising regulation.

This is the first treatment of advertising regulatory history that simultaneously covers and compares various sources of advertising regulation to develop a comprehensive exposition of advertising regulation history.

In April 2017, FINRA issued a regulatory notice addressing the use of social media and digital communications by broker-dealers. The notice expanded on previous FINRA guidance on these topics. This article provides clarity regarding how social media and digital communications fit within the requirements of various FINRA rules and provides guidance to firms and their registered representatives.

The principal topics addressed by FINRA’s regulatory notice are: (a) text messaging, (b) personal versus business communications, (c) third-party content and hyperlinks, (d) native advertising, (e) testimonials and endorsements and (f) links to BrokerCheck. This article presents an overview of each of these topics, respectively.

Under recordkeeping requirements, firms must ensure that they are able to retain communications made through text messaging and chat services. Business communications, which relate to the products or services of the firm, are subject to filing and content requirements, while personal communications are not. Under certain circumstances, third-party posts on social media sites established by the member and testimonials may be attributable to the firm. Native advertising, while permissible, must comply with content requirements. Firm-created electronic applications do not have to provide a link to BrokerCheck.

Firms and their registered representatives will gain a better understanding of what is permissible pursuant to FINRA and SEC rules as they communicate digitally and via social media.

To summarize recent FINRA guidance on social media and digital communications published in Regulatory Notice 17-18.

The intention was to provide a brief summary of the recent FINRA guidance on social media and digital communications published in Regulatory Notice 17-18 along with previous guidance in Regulatory Notices 10-06 and 11-39.

The new guidance focuses on a number of areas of digital communications including text messaging, personal communications, hyperlinks and sharing, native advertising, testimonials and endorsements, correction of third-party content and BrokerCheck links.

Firms should review this new guidance alongside existing FINRA guidance and their current social media and digital communications practices. Where firms observe deficiencies in their existing practices, adjustments should be made before they find themselves the subject of a FINRA investigation, examination or enforcement action.

Practical explanation by experienced financial services lawyers.

Health messages create an awareness of the possible links between nutrition and health, about which consumers have the right to know. The food label is the most appropriate medium for providing this information along with controlled advertising.

The purpose of this study is twofold, first, the study aimed at investigating the impact of celebrities’ credibility on advertising effectiveness by examining the celebrity attributes that are likely to influence consumer attitude towards celebrity-endorsed TV advertising and their purchase behaviour. Second, the study seeks to identify the mediating role of religiosity on consumers’ attitudes towards celebrity-endorsed television advertising and buying behaviour.

The study is based on a survey questionnaire in a sample of 370 Sudanese customers on their attitude towards the celebrity endorsement of television advertising.

The study found that celebrities’ likeability and their attractiveness have the greatest impact on both consumers Attitude and their purchase behaviour. The study also confirms that religiosity partially mediate both the relationships between celebrities’ credibility and the attitude towards the advertisement and purchase behaviour and revealed that religiosity correlates negatively with celebrities’ credibility and attitude towards advertisement.

However, the study has some limitations, as it investigates the effectiveness of celebrities’ endorsement in TV commercials only. Future research could be extended to investigate the effectiveness of using celebrities advertising on other different media such as radio, printed and outdoors media. Further, the study uses a scale based on the Islamic practice dimensions, and using a more comprehensive scale to measure religiosity based on both belief and practices may be a further extension.

These results have important implications for advertising practitioners and business enterprises in Sudan, and other similar communities. They provide guidance in the sense that religiosity should be weighed in and given high importance when using celebrities in advertising campaigns and that the advertisement contents should be compliant with the Islamic law (Shariah).

Understanding how religious beliefs influence the attitude towards the advertising is of great importance to international advertisers to improve advertising effectiveness without offending their Muslim audience. The study enriches the literature on the religiosity and its influence on the consumer behaviour, particularly in the celebrity-endorsed advertisements.

To the best of the authors knowledge, this study is the first study of its kind in Sudan to explore the impact of celebrities’ endorsement on consumers attitude and buying behaviour and provide empirical evidence to verify the existence of a mediating role of religiosity on both the attitude and purchase behaviour in the Sudanese context. It provides an understanding of Sudanese attitudes and purchase decision, as Muslims, and thus provides practitioners with guidelines on how to design celebrity-endorsed TV advertisements to influence consumers’ attitude and buying behaviour.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dilemma that is based on a decision to disclose or not to disclose social shopping rewards (SSRs), in an effort to enhance the effectiveness of social shopping. To protect consumers and guide marketers, emergent forms of online commerce on social media platforms warrant closer examination. One such form is social shopping, which combines social media and online shopping. To motivate word of mouth (WOM) through social signs of approval or endorsement of brands, marketers have typically relied on social shopping rewards (SSRs). It is not typical, however, for the reason behind the social endorsement to be disclosed, leaving the branded message open to multiple interpretations.

The dilemma of SSR disclosures is presented in a marketing and public policy analysis, drawing from findings from the WOM literature on disclosure, incentives, source credibility and on social media Disclosure Guidelines by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). Based on this analysis and on an extension of the Dual Credibility Model, a conceptual model is proposed that shows how disclosure works through source credibility to produce positive social shopping outcomes.

In addition to the conceptual model, recommendations are made for marketing research, practice and public policy. Of significance are proposed SSR Disclosure Guidelines that extend FTC and WOMMA guidelines for best practices in disclosures in social media.

This paper represents pioneering research on the disclosure of SSRs.