How TikTok is supporting creators and brands to improve compliance
At TikTok we're continuing to focus on proactively supporting our industry partners, creators and brands to facilitate and improve compliance with advertising regulations and standards across European markets.
Over the last two years, we've built out locally-driven programmes, partnerships and resources to help educate our creators and partners on the rules they must comply with when working on Branded Content. Read on to learn more about the work we've done on this important topic.
Educating creators on market regulations in Sweden
This September, we launched our first proprietary creator education programme in Sweden to educate TikTok creators on the rules and regulations they need to follow when partnering with brands.
For this initiative, we worked with partners from across the influencer supply chain, including top influencer agencies Splay One and We Are Era, as well as prominent Swedish creator @lalash.b, to create a series of educational videos explaining regulatory rules and the importance of following them. After watching the videos, creators were invited to take part in a short quiz to deepen their learning and ensure they understood the content. We also used the programme to encourage our creators to engage directly with the resources created by Swedish ad regulators to find additional information.
We shared the programme with over 100 TikTok creators and worked with our partners to roll out the programme with their own networks, ensuring that it was widely received and accessible to TikTok creators in Sweden.
Raising awareness of advertising standards in the UK with the ASA
In 2021, we launched a partnership with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the UK's regulator of advertising, to produce videos to raise awareness about the rules that are in place to make sure advertising is legal, decent, honest and truthful. For this partnership, we worked with nine prominent TikTok creators on videos that covered a range of important topics, including:
Misleadingness
Recognition of ads
Body Image
Harmful/dangerous behaviour
Promotions
Price
Remit
Food
Prescription-only medicines
These educational videos were promoted on our platform to ensure they were seen widely by our community of creators. You can check them out on the ASA's official TikTok page. We continue to support the ASA in the UK and contribute to the Advertising Standards Board of Finance (ASBOF) to fund the continuation of their important work.
Partnering with the ARPP to support compliance education in France
In France, we joined the Autorité de Régulation Professionnelle de la Publicité (ARPP) in December 2020, indicating our commitment to truthful and safe advertising in the interest of consumers in the French market.
In 2021, we took this partnership further by working with the ARPP on their 'Influence Responsible' certification programme to support the education of French creators on ethical communications and regulations.
As part of this programme, we created a module covering our Branded Content policies in France and our Branded Content Toggle tool. The module also directs creators to explore further resources, both online and on the TikTok app.
Since partnering with the ARPP, we have seen an increase in the percentage of fully compliant advertising posts on TikTok, which is measured by the ARPP's Responsible Influence Observatory.
Our commitment to transparency around branded content on our platform
We've spoken about our work with local partners and initiatives, but we're also constantly working on tools and solutions that make the disclosing of paid partnerships easier on our own platform.
Our Branded Content Policy defines Branded Content on TikTok as content that promotes goods or services where creators will receive (or have already received) something of value from a third party in exchange for their post, or which creators might otherwise need to disclose in accordance with their local laws or regulations. This could be a brand endorsement, partnership, or another kind of promotion for a product or service. Creators must comply with our Branded Content Policy, and content that does not comply may be removed.
To help creators communicate clearly and simply when a commercial relationship exists between them and a business, we introduced the Branded Content Toggle tool. When a creator enables the toggle, it adds a clear ad disclosure to the description of a post. Creators must enable the Branded Content Toggle when posting Branded Content on TikTok.
In September 2022, we updated the Branded Content Toggle to provide additional functionality that allows any user to specifically identify a brand within the ad disclosure label that appears when the Branded Content Toggle is enabled.
Going into 2023, we intend to continue our work in Sweden, the UK and France, and to proactively support similar initiatives across Europe by expanding our engagement with industry partners, educational programmes and regulatory bodies to facilitate increased compliance with ad regulations for creators.
