Overview of PMA's 2nd Annual Digital Marketing Summit and highlights from the FTC Disclosure Panel

PMA held their 2nd Annual Digital Marketing Summit called Fast Forward 2011 which was held last Thursday, Dec. 3rd, at Google's NYC headquarters. It was a day of full of great content from speakers that presented to a fairly intimate group of attendees. All I could think of is that it's difficult to host an event in December that isn't a holiday party which everyone has way too many on their calendars already. Well for those of us who got to attend it was our gain and all others their loss.

I spoke on a panel regarding the new FTC disclosure guidelines and what they mean for advertising and marketing. I had the privileged to be joined by Linda Goldstein, Esq., Partner, Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips LLP, who I have heard speak several times and highly regard as the diva of sweepstakes and promotional marketing law, and Randall Rothenberg, President, Interactive Advertising Bureau, who I had not previously met but got to speak to ahead of time on a conference call. We were the last panel of the day just prior to Tim Reis from Google and Elizabeth Apelles from agency Greater Than One , both Summit co-chairs,  who got to wrap-up the day with a look into the future. Then eveyone could head over to the cocktail reception which was held at Google's Chelsea Market Slide Microkitchen location just across the street from where we were.

Linda took the lead of our panel and started off with an overview of the new guidelines which where issued on October 5, 2009 and just went into effect as of December 1st. Some people in the room where not familiar with them at all. The main points she referenced were:

• The guides hadn't been updated since 1980 and they do not have the force of law; not a statute or formal trade regulation rule
• Applies only to SPONSORED ADVERTISING - Endorsements paid for/solicited directly or indirectly by the Advertiser
• Requires disclosure of material connections between seller and endorser
• No fines for violating the Guides
• Violation of Guides likely will be viewed as violation of Section 5 of FTC Act
• FTC goal is transparency and honesty

Randall spoke more from the IAB's position as well as his own and both he and Linda agreed that the process the FTC followed in releasing these updated guidelines was very flawed. He called the new FTC guidelines "the most egregious violation of first amendment freedom in the history of the FTC". He said shame of the FTC who didn't hold any public workshops that they normally do when issuing new guidelines such as these.

From the blogger's point of view I mentioned that we're all really waiting to see what the first real enforcement of the guidelines will actually be. Most bloggers that I follow have been somewhat positive about these changes and hope that they will weed out those affiliate marketers that are not being transparent and who need to be held accountable for their claims. In a way these guidelines have verified that blogs are now a legitimate form of new media and bloggers are being recognized as professional writers and journalists.  

I also shared information about the Blog With Integrity pledge that was created by four women bloggers (one my friend Susan Getgood who I first met at BlogHer back in 2007) to provide bloggers with a tangible and collective way to express their commitment to a simple code of blogging conduct. I signed up and am proud to carry the badge on my blog. They now have over 1950 members since they launched this in July in anticipation of the FTC's actions. They recently held a free webinar which was a Town Hall Meeting with FTC's Mary Engle and they are planning future webinars to further educate both bloggers and marketers. 

Another new program that has just launched this past week also in response to the FTC's new guidelines is CMP.ly. This disclosure solution was developed by Tom Chernaik, founder of parent company DigComm, and Chris Smith, Senior Editor of TechStartups.com. They are hoping that this solution will become the model for how marketers and agencies track the conversation and which gives bloggers an easy and effective way to disclose their relationship.

I could do a blog post on each and every speaker that was at the Summit, but I promised my readers I'd be blogging about current holiday promotions, so I need to get back on that. Though I have to report that I loved meeting and listening to the keynote speaker, Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era, who talked about how social media is changing the marketing landscape. I picked up an autographed copy of her book. Plus Ben Smith from Dunkin Donuts reviewed with us some of the promotions that they've done on Facebook this past year and the strengths and weaknesses of each. I got some great ideas from Ben which I told him later on at the cocktail party that I was going to steal and he said "be my guest"!

Thanks to the team at PMA for inviting me. Looking forward now to their Annual Integrated Marketing Conference which is called Blur to be held back in Chicago at the Fairmont Hotel on March 23 & 24. So I hope to see many of you there.