Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association
  - The code was officially updated 9/21/2009. 

WOMMA (the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, of which MeHype is a member) recently updated their Code of Ethics in order to address an upcoming FTC guideline "Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising"(See 16 C.F.R. §§ 255.0–255.5.) You can download a copy of the FTC guidlines here

Preamble

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (“WOMMA”) is an official trade association that represents the interests of the word of mouth and social media industry. WOMMA is committed to building a prosperous industry that is based upon best practices, effective standards, and responsible leadership. A central mission of WOMMA is to create an environment of trust between consumers and marketers. Members of WOMMA seek to enhance the meaningful development of their fellow members, the industry, and their customers, and are committed to compliance with laws and regulations that govern the prevention of unfair, deceptive or misleading marketing practices.

Therefore, members of WOMMA strive to:

Conditions for Membership into WOMMA

To qualify for and maintain a membership in WOMMA, the applicant or Member shall:

Purpose of the Code of Ethics

WOMMA has adopted a Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct as a requirement of membership into the association, with the hope that the Code and Standards reflect an attempt by industry members to “do the right thing” by engaging in responsible self-regulatory efforts concerning their marketing practices. The fulcrum of the Code and Standards is the Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission. See 16 C.F.R. §§ 255.0–255.5.

WOMMA, however, is obviously not an agent or representative of any governmental regulator or law enforcement agency, and its views are not intended to represent any formal or informal interpretations of any laws or regulations.

Standards of Conduct Required of WOMMA Members

Standard 1 – Disclosure of identity:  A WOMMA member shall require their  representatives¹ to make meaningful disclosures of  their relationships or identities with consumers in relation to the marketing initiatives that could influence a consumer’s purchasing decisions.

Standard 2 – Disclosure of consideration or compensation received:  A WOMMA member shall require their representatives to disclose meaningfully and prominently all forms of consideration or compensation they received from the member, marketer or sponsor of the product or service.  In other words, WOMMA members shall not engage in marketing practices where the marketer/sponsor or its representative provides goods, services, or compensation to the consumer (or communicator) as consideration for recommendations, reviews, or endorsements, unless full, meaningful, and prominent disclosure is provided. 

Standard 3 – Disclosure of relationship: A WOMMA member shall require their  representatives involved in a word of mouth initiative to disclose the material aspects of their commercial relationship with a marketer, including the specific type of any remuneration or consideration received.

Standard 4 – Compliance with FTC Guides: A WOMMA member shall comply with the Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising promulgated by the Federal Trade Commission.  See 16 C.F.R. §§ 255.0–255.5. 

Standard 5 – Genuine honesty in communication: A WOMMA member shall not tell their  representatives what to ultimately state in their communications about a particular product or service, so as to enable the consumer to reflect his or her honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences.

Standard 6 – Respect for venue: A WOMMA member shall respect the rights of any online or offline communications venue (such as a web site, blog, discussion forum, traditional media, and live setting) to create and enforce its own rules as it sees fit. 

Standard 7 – Marketing to children and adolescents: A WOMMA member shall not include children under the age of 13 in any of its word of mouth marketing programs or campaigns; and shall comply with all applicable laws dealing with minors and marketing, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”).  See 16 C.F.R. § 312.

Standard 8 – Compliance with media-specific rules: A WOMMA member shall comply with existing media-specific rules regarding marketing to children.

Review of the Code of Ethics

The Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct constitutes a “living document,” that is intended to evolve given the development of new technologies and media and enactment of new laws and regulations.  As a result, WOMMA has adopted two mechanisms for the membership and third parties to comment upon the Code and Standards.

The first mechanism is the annual review process that is announced at the beginning of November each year and which concludes in February of the immediate following year.  It is designed to be transparent and inclusive, seeking thoughtful input and dialogue.

Here is MeHype's contribution to the Living Ethics Blog where WOMMA posed the question: "Should there be a different form of disclosure for receiving cash vs. receiving product to review?"

I don’t think there should be any difference in the disclosure requirements for cash versus product/service. The main issue here (to paraphrase Ted Murphy of Izea) is “value”. If something of value is gained by the consumer who is offering an opinion, in whatever form (verbal, text or visual), then there needs to be disclosure by both the consumer and the brand being represented. To differentiate between cash reward versus product/service reward is irrelevant. - Tyler LeCompte, Director for MeHype

The second mechanism is a review that can be triggered by a petition concerning a specific issue to WOMMA’s Executive Director by three members in good standing.  Specifically, once the petitions by the three members are received, the following steps will occur:

Once the Board’s decision has been announced, there will be a one hundred and eighty (180) day compliance period, which will be clearly set out for the membership.  If any member is unable to comply, the affected member will be asked to resign from the membership.

Enforcement of the Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct

Any member of WOMMA may be admonished, suspended or expelled for cause due to conduct, acts, or omissions that are contrary to the spirit and letter of the Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct.  This disciplinary review process is enforced through WOMMA’s Membership Ethics Advisory Panel (“MEAP”), a Board-appointed group that is focused on monitoring the industry, educating WOMMA members on best practices in marketing ethics, and investigating allegations of Code violations.  Specifically, the MEAP is responsible for reviewing (a) prospective member companies who are found in the membership application process to have questionable practices; and (b) allegations of unethical, deceptive, misleading, or unfair practices from current WOMMA members by other members of WOMMA.  It acts in an advisory capacity to the Board of Directors.

MeHype fully supports WOMMA and its membership in it recent decision to address compensation for endorsements (text, audio or video) in any marketing practices by its members or their clients. We look forward to seeing changes in the Word of Mouth Marketing industry in the coming months as these changes and guidelines are adopted. 

Best Practice Disclosure: What Brands Should Do (and Why) 

Best-Practice Disclosure: Let's Start With A "Terms of Engagement"

3 "Watch-outs" About The FTC Guidelines and Blogger Outreach

The Difference between Paid Media, Earned Media and Word of Mouth

Practice Ethical WOM or Else

Fail: Outsourcing Paid Word of Mouth

The New Social Media & WOMM Ethics Challenges #3 - Fake Social Media

Original Post: http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/2009/09/best-practice-disclosure-an-index-of-povs.html

Original Post: http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/

Yesterday, WOMMA hosted a panel webinar regarding best practices in disclosure between advertisers/marketers/brands and bloggers that speak about their products & services. Called "Ethics and Endorsements: What is Adequate Disclosure?" the panel included many industry leading experts including:

• John Bell, Current WOMMA President and Head of 360* Digital Influence team for Ogilivy PR
• Jory Des Jardin - CEO @ BlogHer
• Sean Corcoran - Forrester Research
• Tom Collinger - Professor @ Medill School @ Northwestern Univ
• Anthony DiResta - WOMMA legal counsel and Partner @ Maratt, Phelps., et al.

At WOMMA, we are launching a project to define the best ways brands and influencer/bloggers should tell the public of their "material relationship." If you are a brand and plan to try and engage influencers to get them to talk, share, create content about you, then you owe it to yourself to pay attention to this issue and establish your own principles.

Three simple reasons why:

1. If you want to activate word of mouth it must be genuine. You might be able to "incent" the first voice (G0) but their followers/readers (G1, G2, Gn) will insist on knowing what you did to engage that blogger. They need to judge the credibility for themselves. I don't care how much credibility that blogger has earned over the years, credibility and trust is established anew everyday. 

2. You will protect your brand from online backlash. Will the villagers rise up against your brand? The answer is that you just never know. Do you want to be that marketer who gets "outed" for secretly paying bloggers to post reviews? Or paying their expenses for a visit to HQ? Some brands believe their online reputation is key to their overall reputation and wouldn't like that.

3. The FTC is about to release their guidelines about testimonials and disclosure. They will require you as the brand to disclose and to motivate your influencers to do the same. The FTC wouldn't have to do this if every brand followed to principlies like WOMMA's Honesty ROI ("R" is "relationship" as in what-is-your-material-relationship)

What brands should do for best practice disclosure:
The WOMMA Disclosure Project invites industry practitioners and thought leaders (like those at the kick-off Web Summit) to articulate the form of best practice or "clear and meaningful" disclosure. New platforms and behaviors are going to require new examples. The following are my own initial thoughts for elements of best practice disclosure for a brand and the influencers they engage.

Terms of engagement
Every word of mouth marketing program that seeks to spark third parties to talk about them, their products or topics relevant to the brand must draft a "terms of engagement" and post it visibly on the program or brand Web site. I have described this document in a recent post.

• Be clear and explicit. Name amounts or ballparks of any expenses or other consideration you delivered. Was the product a loaner or a keeper? Go ahead and say. No one likes it when brands are cagey about these details.
• Ask your blogger/influencers to link to the terms of engagement or post their own version on their site. Sometimes its best if that is their first post about what they are doing.
  

Influencer Agreement
If you are working extensively with the same bloggers (any of the brand panels talked about here are goo dexamples of that) then craft a simple one page agreement that compels the bloggers to disclose and promise to only state their true opinion. It may not be enforceable beyond you stopping working with them but it sets the right tone.

Per post disclosure
If the inlfuencer is not part of a formal program with its own badge (think: Walmart 11 Moms or The Fab5), then there posts and comments should include a refernce and link to the terms of enagement, program, or their on-site disclosure statement - e.g. "... this post is part of my BrandX series. Click here for the terms of engagement." 

• Tweets - here's a special case. The format is short and not always connected to your full bio or your blog. Tweets should be marked whenever practical. When I write about a client, I almost always mark the Tweet with (cl) to indicate it's a client. If I were an influencer and loaned a new computer to try (like maybe an Alienware - hint, hint) and I blogged and tweeted about the experience, how should I mark those tweets? Alienware didn't pay me. The entire material relationship is the 2 month loan of the computer (I have never done this. This is just a hypothetical). I can't call them "sponsor" nor can I call them "partner" as both are too formal and inaccurate.

Three solutions:

• Add mention of the program in your Twitter bio page with a link to the Terms of Engagement on your blog
• Add (disc) to your tweet, preferably with a link to the Terms of Engagement.
• If you are simply linking to a post that is fully diclosed, the Tweet, itself, can go without. But if you are stating opinion in a tweet, then mark it.

Social media bio
By adding a statement in your "about us" or bio page about your involvement with a particular brand or your likelihood to engage with brands from time to time, you have gone the extra mile to be clear with people.

Align with WOMMA
WOMMA has the industry standard ethics policies including policies on disclosure. If you are a member, then those policies becme your own. They will protect you, your brand and the consumer. It is a great way top get a large organization aligned about a non-partisan standard. Just tell everyone in the marcom disciplines that they need to behave according to the WOMMA ethics.

What do you think is "best practice disclosure?"

Hope that you enjoyed John's post. If you have any comments about this webinar and content, or would like to add your two cents to the topic of "Ethics and Endorsements: What is Adequate Disclosure?" please comment here. Thanks

Original Post: http://johnbell.typepad.com/weblog/

Below is a letter from Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) President-elect Paul Rand regarding the recent debate about "sponsored conversations" (either verbal, audio or video based) and the resulting months of lively discussions that insued.

I for one am very satisfied with the final language of the change, as it supports the proper discloure and transparency in any marketing effort that might be otherwise construed as a natural relationship, but also allows a company such as MeHype to continue to participate in this field while also enjoying the privileges of membership in a group such as WOMMA.

Thank you to all WOMMA members that shared their two cents, as well as members of the ethics review board and WOMMA staff. - Tyler LeCompte, Director for MeHype.

Original Post: http://womma.org/ethicsreview/

Dear WOMMA Members,

As many of you are aware, one section of the WOMMA Code of Ethics was re-opened after the requisite three members requested a review. More than 60 members and interested parties commented on whether the statement, “We stand against marketing practices whereby the consumer is paid cash by the manufacturer, supplier or one of their representatives to make recommendations, reviews or endorsements” should be part of the Code.

After much deliberation, there is 100% agreement among the MEAP (Member Ethics Advisory Panel) and the WOMMA Board of Directors to refine this section of the Code of Ethics. The aforementioned statement will be replaced with the following:

We stand against marketing practices whereby the marketer or its representatives provide goods, services or compensation to the consumer to make recommendations, reviews or endorsements without full, meaningful, and prominent disclosure.

A final version of the Code can be found at (http://womma.org/ethics/code/).

While few would disagree with the need for disclosure, there is an increasing industry demand to qualify and provide direction on what constitutes “full, meaningful and prominent” disclosure. If, for example, a consumer is given a product to review he/she must clearly state that in their review. If someone is paid to write a review, that too must be fully, meaningfully, and prominently disclosed.

As part of WOMMA’s ongoing Living Ethics program, we be will launching a “straw man” outline regarding disclosure and asking our members and community to provide input. We will also be conducting a live “disclosure debate” to bring together some of the leading thinkers in the space to help shape what can become an industry-agreed standard regarding the right and best ways to disclose.

The new disclosure guidelines will be formally unveiled at the WOMMA Summit, being held November 18-20 in Las Vegas.

Thank you to all who have participated in this important process. Please post comments/questions here.

Best regards,

WOM enthusiast at WOMMA, John Moore, has started a new series of videos as part of his overall All Things WOM blog/voice. His first "Video Ditty" is Don't Tell. Do Ask. and focuses on some common ways to do best practice word of mouth marketing no matter which way the FTC lands on its proposed guidelines...

Original Post: http://tinyurl.com/nejcpk