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WOMMA (we are members, I serve on the board)  has just released revised ethics guidelines covering the best practice ethics for word of mouth marketing.  WOMMA pioneered WOMM ethics with its “Honesty ROI” which was the source of best practices around full disclosure and other principles.

We recently updated the policies by transforming them into a “Living Ethics Guidelines” via a collaboration at our last event and online where we solicited ideas about how they should be refined. This process will continue and lead to periodic updates.

Any brand or marketer who cares about effective and ethical use of social media and word of mouth marketing should take a look at the ethics policies. They respond to some phenomena happening from incentives to bloggers to FTC concerns about endorsements.

You can get the full ethics code here. To give you a sense of how things have changed, here is one excerpt from the Honesty ROI:

Honesty of Relationship:

• We practice openness about the relationship between consumers and marketers. Consumers engaged in a word of mouth program should disclose their relationship with marketers in their communications with other consumers. We don’t tell consumers specifically what to say, but we do instruct them to be open and honest about any relationship with a marketer and about any products or incentives that they may have received.
• We require marketers to disclose their relationships with consumers in relation to word of mouth initiatives.
• We require marketers to effectively monitor disclosure of consumers involved in their word of mouth initiatives.
• 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.
• We require consumers 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 received.
• We require consumers involved in a word of mouth initiative to disclose the source of product samples or incentives received from a marketer.
• We comply with FTC regulations that state: “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed.”

Get the full WOMMA ethics policy here>