FTC Decision: No Fines Imposed on Ann Taylor Investigation

No fines will be imposed against Ann Taylor, the FTC has decided, after its first major investigation into a potential violation of the organization’s updated “FTC Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” in December.

The investigation centered around an event on January 26, where Ann Taylor invited bloggers to preview its Summer 2010 LOFT Collection, promising attending bloggers a “special gift” and entry for a gift card drawing for those who submitted their posts to the company within 24 hours of the event.

While the final word from the FTC no doubt led to a sigh of relief from PR pros at the event, the organization is no doubt keeping tabs on the blogosphere and the companies who are pitching them.

Are bloggers being unfairly targeted, or, as posed by an April 30 Mashable post, are marketers and the FTC making a statement that bloggers don’t stand on the same ground as “journalists”? I would argue not.

In my 10 year career as a Web reporter, print writer and blogger, I’ve been offered numerous promotional packages that far outweigh the gift cards in question from Ann Taylor. Film writers, as I was, were often the recipients of major gift packages, travel, lodging, and other items for coving film releases. In the newsroom where I worked as a staffer, reporters were warned against receiving any item “worth more than a cup of coffee” – at the risk of losing one’s job. However, the same newsroom accepted freelance content from reporters who weren’t held to the same strict standards, and these promotional items were considered just a part of the job description.

One only needs take a look at Hollywood’s portrayal of the PR/journalist relationship to see just how lavish some of these gifts are. In “The Devil Wears Prada,” viewers can see just how many “product samples” and gifts are given to the fictional (yet Anna Wintour-based) Miranda Priestly, both in “the closet” at the magazine and in the gifts that Anne Hathaway’s “Andy” gives to her friends at a happy hour gathering.

As we reported back in December, the issue at hand is advertorial, rather than editorial, content. As a blogger, it is important to note any perceived bias in your post, and it’s often easy to do so without a complicated legal disclosure as a footnote (although, these can be a good idea).

Econsultancy wrote, “LOFT adopted a written policy…stating that LOFT will not issue any gift to any blogger without first telling the blogger that the blogger must disclose the gift in his or her blog.”

What do you think of the Ann Taylor preview and gift card giveaway? Did you attend the event?