Disappearing Warning Labels

Disappearing Warning Labels

Aren’t there supposed to be warning labels? Uh . . . yes. The FTC is supposed to protect us from all this monkey business. In 2015, it issued guidelines for publishers to follow. Labels were supposed to be “clear and conspicuous,” displayed in a “font and color that’s easy to read.” The labels weren’t supposed to beat around the bush either. The FTC recommended that publishers use words understandable by a ten-year-old: “ad” or “advertisement.” Even better: “paid advertisement.”

Did you notice the weasel word “recommended” in the FTC statement? At the same time the FTC specified guidelines, it provided publishers with an escape hatch as big as the Grand Canyon. Publishers, it wrote, should be transparent about paid ads. However, the “required nature of transparency is situation specific.” Ah, yes, situation specific. You didn’t need laser vision to see where all this was headed.

First, a whole bunch of slithery alternatives to “ad” and “advertisement” started to sprout: “sponsored content,” “presented by,” “crafted by,” “partner content,” “brand voice,” “in association with,” “brought to you by,” “co-created with,” “hosted by,” or the most unobtrusive of them all, just one word: “with”—as in, “with Shell.” What’s “with Shell” supposed to mean, anyway?

It gets worse. The deals publishers work out with clients are based on clicks. So, inside T Brand Studio at the New York Times or The Atlantic’s Re:think, you have “audience development teams” tracking clicks and making little tweaks to ads—changing the font, altering the color scheme, enlarging a headline, changing the picture—until they arrive at just the right camouflage to garner the most clicks.

You’d think that if you wanted people to see a warning label, no matter what weasel word you slap on it, you’d put it at the top of the story. Not only does this seem like common sense—it’s what the FTC recommends. And here’s where the slime achieves its thickest viscosity. It turns out that when researchers studied what happens when a label comes at the top of an ad, they found that most people—60 percent—overlook it. But when it’s in the middle, nine out of ten people notice it. Guess where publishers put that label. Right you are: at the top, safely concealed by the blinding masthead-headline-picture trifecta. When most of us look at an online story, our eyes focus on this combination and glaze over the small print. The FTC’s guidelines about warning-label placement (“immediately before the ad or at the top left corner of the content”) may actually help morally challenged journalists sharpen their claws of deception.

[22] FTC, “Native Advertising: A Guide for Businesses,” 2015. [23] Study on warning label placement (referenced in text).