Glossary/Ad labelling
What is ad disclosure?
Short answer
Ad disclosure is a clear note that a piece of content was made for a brand and for payment — in money or in kind. The audience should see it straight away, before they start watching, rather than find it at the end of the caption. In Poland the duty falls on both sides: the creator who publishes and the brand that commissions the content.
What exactly is ad disclosure?
Not a formality and not a hashtag stuck on at the end. The disclosure answers one question for the audience: is this person saying it because they think so, or because they were paid to. So what counts is a plain word in a visible place — “advertisement”, “advertising content”, “paid partnership” — not a phrase that has to be decoded first.
When does content need a disclosure?
Not only when a payment has landed in your account:
Barter: a product or service received free of charge is payment too, so the content is an advertising message.
Affiliation: a link with a commission means you earn on your audience's purchases, and you have to say so outright.
The creator's own brand, or a product they have a financial stake in. The audience should know that context just as they would with an outside task.
An ad run from your account by a brand: the disclosure has to be in the content, not only in the campaign settings.
Why is this not only the creator's problem?
Because the responsibility is shared: the creator publishes, but the brand commissions, and a contract clause along the lines of “the creator will ensure compliance” does not transfer the duty in full. The risk is spread over time too — undisclosed content can be found long after the campaign has ended. It is cheaper to agree the form of disclosure in the task than to explain its absence later.
Where to order it or find tasks
Related terms
Words that come up in the same conversations. Each has its own definition in the glossary.
- Sponsored content
- Material published by a creator on a brand's order and for payment. It has to be clearly labelled as advertising — including when the settlement was barter. Read more
- Product placement
- Showing a product inside content that would have been made anyway: in a video, a story or a post. The viewer watches the material and the product is part of it, not a break in it. Read more
- Usage rights
- The creator's consent to where and for how long the brand may use their material. Without it the recording may only be shown where it originally appeared. Read more
- Whitelisting
- The creator's consent to promote their material as an ad from the brand's ad account. The post stays under the creator's name, but the brand sets the reach and the targeting. Read more
Frequently asked questions
Is a hashtag with the word collaboration enough?
A hashtag on its own, lost among a dozen others, usually is not enough. The information has to be visible without expanding the caption and phrased plainly — the word “advertisement” works better than an abbreviation the audience has to interpret.
Does the platform's paid partnership tool settle the matter?
It helps, but it is often barely visible, especially in video watched on a small screen with the sound off. The safest approach is to combine it with a disclosure in the content itself and at the start of the caption.
Who is responsible if the disclosure is missing?
Both sides: the creator as the one publishing and the brand as the one commissioning. That is why it is worth agreeing the form of disclosure in the task, along with the publication date and the scope of use for the content.
