Influencer Marketing – Do We Need a New Law or a New Approach? Few Remarks From the European and Polish Perspective

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok - any social media is full of advertising. The history of celebrity endorsement of products is nothing really new, but Internet brought it to the extreme level. A wide range of global population has been relying on influencers for all sorts of information. It creates the great responsibility as influencer marketing may lead to faulty advertising and misinformation, especially among minors and people with low digital literacy. Until recently influencers and their activities were not the subject of particular legal interest. These issues are currently addressed through tailored legislation neither at EU level nor in national regulations. To compensate for it, the last few years have seen a proliferation of soft law (regulatory guidelines) and industry self-regulatory measures to provide greater transparency. But is soft law combined with case law enough to provide the desired standard of consumer protection in the whole Single Market? Since platforms and technologies change at fast pace are we able to create a regulation that will not lag behind the development of the market? The digital environment in which influencer marketing takes place, which can hardly be confined to one country, creates additional challenges for legislators. The objective of the article is twofold: firstly, to present the existing legal framework at the EU and Polish levels; and secondly, to identify potential weaknesses in these regulations in the context of influencer marketing.