Regulating influencers' commercial communication: No legislation, hardly any self‐regulation and policy recommendations

Abstract

Influencers are gaining remarkable ground. Their content‐creation abilities, their credibility and consumer identification all represent an added value in commercial communication. However, controversies have emerged regarding the contents they divulge, as it is not always easy to distinguish advertising communication in the contents they post. Standards and guidelines issued on the matter pursue such transparency. In the present article, we analyse the specific regulations, both of a legal and self‐regulatory nature, that exist today on influencer commercial communication in the Americas and Europe. A total of 35 documents (21 from the American continent and 14 from Europe) were analysed. The results suggest that both the standards and the consulted guidelines fulfil their function: they offer instructions and parameters that promote the transparency of commercial communication. Nevertheless, it was found that further advances were necessary regarding various issues: (1) a standard definition of the influencer term, to allow for its regulation; (2) an agreement among different countries on common parameters, given the borderless nature of this form of communication; and (3), the promotion of advertising literacy to raise consumer awareness of the cross‐divulgation of advertising and opinion.