Creation of a Code of Ethics for Influencer Marketing: The Case of the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

Influencer marketing is an increasingly important and ubiquitous component of strategic communication campaigns, yet one that remains ethically fraught, due largely to the nonexistence of, and objections to, ethics codes and/or regulation guiding its use or disclosure. This article describes a unique academic/industry hybrid study conducted in the Czech Republic combining (a) mixed-methods research in which marketing professionals, industry associations, influencers, and consumers served as participants and (b) a case study of the subsequent development and implementation of – and positive responses to – that nation’s first “Fair Influencer” Code of Ethics, whose content was based directly on the research findings. To date, the Code has 150 signatories, representing all constituencies of the influencer-marketing sphere, and has been lauded by Czech and Slovak consumer and media outlets as well as influencers themselves, suggesting the applicability of similar efforts in other nations where influencer marketing thrives but still lacks – and encounters resistance to – ethical or regulatory oversight.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ See https://www.samoregulace.cz/doporucena-pravidla-spoluprace-zadavatele-a-influencera.

² The key findings of Drozdová (2019) study, an unpublished thesis manuscript written in the Czech language, were summarized in English as a press release published by the University’s Faculty of Social Sciences, available at https://fsv.cuni.cz/skrytou-reklamu-na-internetu- pozna-jen-jedno-dite-z-deseti-zjistili-vyzkumnici-z-univerzity-karlovy. The complete thesis is available, in Czech, at https://is.cuni.cz/webapps/zzp/detail/212047/.

³ Two of the focus groups discussions were conducted virtually, as necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

⁴ Because this hypothesis was based solely on the input of marketers, we felt it important to include on the discussion panel a variety of influencers; for that reason, we invited influencers who have broad target audiences as well as those who reach more narrowly-focused audiences.

⁵ Highlights of the quantitative findings and the panel discussion were published in a press release on November 19, 2019, available at https://fsv.cuni.cz/fakulta/pro-media/tz-75- zadavatelu-reklamy-vola-po-etickem-kodexu-influencer-marketingu.

⁶ The Code was also announced via the press release available at https://fsv.cuni.cz/fakulta/pro- media/tz-pokracuje-boj-proti-skryte-reklame-na-socialnich-sitich-influenceri-budou-mit.

⁷ See https://www.mediar.cz/instameet-2020/.

⁸ See https://ferovyinfluencer.cz/#zakladni-info.

⁹ See https://ferovyinfluencer.cz/podat-podnet.

¹⁰ Per the Newton Media online media monitoring tool.

¹¹ At the same time, we hasten to point out that the ethical and regulatory components of social media broadly, and influencer marketing specifically, are relatively new foci for scholars of media, marketing, and communication studies as well. Costello and Urbanska (2021), Ebert and Sindermann (2020), MacRury (2021), and Taylor (2020) are among those contributing to this still-developing field, as are Boerman and van Reijmersdal (2020) and Wellman et al. (2020), which were cited in the present article’s introduction.

¹² The influencers we spoke with also seem to be unaware of this. However, we did not pursue these (admittedly troubling) findings in our subsequent research as they would need to be addressed by federal law rather than through our Code of Conduct which, of course, is an instrument of self-regulation, not government regulation.