What FTC’s Cole Haan ruling means for marketers’ Pinterest contests

This is important from Mobile Marketer

By Chantal Tode

April 3, 2014

From Cole Haan's Wandering Sole Pinterest board

A recent ruling against Cole Haan from the Federal Trade Commission puts marketers on notice that pinned content on Pinterest featuring a brand’s product and generated via a contest must be clearly marked as a product endorsement.

The FTC has not previously explicitly addressed whether a pin on Pinterest constitutes an endorsement, but the agency asserted in a recent letter that the brand created a deceptive situation because consumers did not realize others had received an incentive for pinning the brand’s products to Pinterest. While contests built around encouraging consumers to upload content to social media sites have been growing in popularity thanks to how easy it is share photos from a smartphone, the ruling points to one of the potential pitfalls with such a strategy.More here