Is influence, as the new far-west of advertising, on its way out for good, to be replaced by more responsible practices? In any case, this is the trend that seems to be taking shape in 2023. The series of roundtables on influence organized by the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance (in which Effinity took part), the creation of the UMICC, the new professional association for influence marketing (of which Effinity is a member), the draft law* to be presented at the end of March, etc., are all signs that the party is over. Influence must become responsible…
Responsible influence is the promotion of ethical and responsible influencer marketing practices. Its main aim is to protect consumers, by ensuring that advertising messages are clearly identified as such, and that influencers do not promote products or services that do not correspond to their community or field of expertise.
What is ARPP’s Responsible Influence Certificate?
ARPP (Autorité de Régulation Professionnelle de la Publicité) has launched a Responsible Influencer Certificate for influencers in 2021, to ” promote ethical and responsible influencer marketing that respects audiences “. It is aimed at influencers collaborating with advertisers, with a view to publishing commercial or institutional communications.
Objectives of the Responsible Influence Certificate
The objectives of the certificate are to protect influencers’ audiences, to enable brands to differentiate between content creators who are aware of best practices and, more generally, to preserve the values of ethical and responsible influencer marketing. In addition, as ARPP points out, “the Responsible Influence Certificate is thus a means for all stakeholders and interested parties (audiences, brands, agencies, authorities, etc.) to ensure that the Influencer has followed a course to raise awareness of ARPP’s ethical recommendations, and that the knowledge acquired during this course has been successfully validated“.
Training content
To register, influencers must pay a fee that depends on their number of subscribers (from €49 for less than 100,000 subscribers to €129 for over a million subscribers). Agencies, agents, advertisers, media, platforms, etc. can also pay the registration fee. During the training course, which lasts an estimated 3h30, influencers are made aware of the main ethical and legal rules inherent to their activity. The program includes the “checklist” to be verified before entering into any partnership, and the legal and ethical rules to be respected, both transversal and sector-specific. A specific gambling option is offered to influencers.
The certification exam
Once they have taken all the courses, influencers can test their knowledge with a mock exam, before taking the real exam, which lasts around twenty minutes. Those with at least 75% correct answers will be awarded the precious sesame. For the others, they can register for a future session (a new session every quarter).
At the time of publication of this article, over 500 influencers hold the Certificate issued by ARPP. Today, influencers are only strongly advised to obtain it, but in the not-too-distant future, it may well become compulsory.
Effinity and responsible influence
As far as Effinity is concerned, we can only encourage all influencers wishing to register on our influencer platform to monetize their content, to obtain the Responsible Influence Certificate. We’re still in the deployment and education phase, but as part of Effinty’s membership of the UMICC, we’ve committed to working only with certified influencers in the long term.
In the meantime, for over three years now, we have had a contractual arrangement in place between influencers, advertisers and our platform, which must be accepted by every influencer who signs up. Coupled with a rigorous method of sourcing influencers, this has enabled us to guarantee our customers that we work with content creators who are in tune with their values and respect their audiences.
* Proposition de loi n°790 to combat scams and abuses by influencers on social networks
