All 510 of us registered attendees of PMA's 2009 Promotion Marketing Law Conference experienced a very, very full day today at the Fairmont Hotel which is host to this year's event. This year's theme is "staying connected @ the speed of change" which is so appropriate being that some polices that we reviewed today were just announced yesterday and others are so new that they're not even officially in effect yet. Plus there's a number of other legal decisions still to be announced before the close of 2009.
The morning was kicked started by Linda Goldstein, Sweepstakes Diva herself, in which she reviewed many rules and regulations and made it fun and engaging with a theme she called the PMA Risk Assessor App. I could spend quite a bit of time reviewing what she said, but I just can't write that fast, so I'm going to wait till I get a copy of her presentation and review it at a later time.
Now since I just launched my first sweepstakes promotion on Facebook last week I felt that Suzie White, Corporate Counsel for Facebook, that presented to us after the lunch break had the most "hot off the press" news. She reviewed with us Facebook's new policy for running promotions on their platform which was just posted online yesterday here at www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php.
The question posed was..Do you need permission to run a sweepstakes and/or contest promotion on Facebook? If you are just publicizing a sweepstakes or contest promotion on Facebook that is administered elsewhere, such as a website, this is fine and you don't need their permission. However, if you want to run a promotion that is administered on the Facebook platform, then you need to abide by their guidelines. You need to obtain Facebook's prior written consent or you must have it administered on a Facebook platform app.
You cannot automatically enter someone in a sweepstakes because they became a fan on your Facebook page. You can however only allow fans of your page access to the promotions tab on our page that contains the 3rd party app which administers the promotion. By utilizing the Wildfire app for the RAMA & Friends Sweepstakes that I launched last week, I am in full compliance with these new guidelines and understand fully what they mean by the "promotions" tab. Take a look here.
With the phenomenal growth that Facebook has expereinced over the past year this is an area that appeared to be of huge interest to all. Susie also shared with us info regarding the use of Facebook logos and trademarks which we should be aware of. We can use their supplied logo for Facebook pages that says "FInd us on Facebook" that can be added to websites and blogs. These logos and guidelines can be found under the Advertising & Developer links and you can also email them with questions at permissions@facebook.com.
Also it was noted that brands should not use any content posted on their Facebook wall by fans for advertising and marketing purposes without the clear consent and permission of the person that posted it. Which is of course not always that easy to obtain. Brian Downing, Product Counsel from Google spoke about YouTube and shared with us that there is a direct message feature on YouTube that can be used to reach out to a user if there is an interest in using their video for advertising and marketing purposes. Something he said most people don't realize exists.
A brief overview was then given by Luis Rivers Marin from Puerto Rico's Department of Consumer Affairs to update us on their newly amended sweepstakes rules. He joked that his wife was upset when she couldn't enter a sweepstakes promotion a resort was holding because Puerto Rican citizens were not eligible to enter. So they have made the necessary changes to be in close compliance with U.S. states. Now we can feel comfortable adding the almost 4 million Puerto Rican residents to our U.S. national-based sweepstakes promotions. These amendments go into effect November 27, 2009. For more info you can visit www.daco.gobierno.pr.
We all had our heads spinning from the many guidelines and details associated with mobile marketing promotions. Some of the AMOE (alternate means of entry) guidelines just don't seem to make logical sense, particularly destination-based sweepstakes. An example given was texting for a chance to win at a sports stadium where the winner would be announced before the game is over. How do you offer an AMOE? Ballot boxes at the stadium where suggested, but how do you integrate written entries with SMS entries? Good luck!
A decision on the big class action law suits regarding premium text messaging should come by December 9th. Until this decision is finalized most counsel have highly have discouraged any promotion from requiring an additional fee to enter via SMS. This has been pending for sometime, therefore we haven't seen many new SMS promotions that require the premium fees.
Now I am just a blogger and marketing consultant, who by the way is a guest the PMA invited to cover the conference. So I'm not offering any legal advice, but instead just giving you my interpretation of what was reviewed with us today. It's that whole disclosure issue which was touched upon today and hopefully will be discussed in more depth tomorrow when we hear from the FCC at the opening keynote session in the morning. So please stay tuned!
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