Kjellberg was one of many YouTube stars that were paid by Warner Bros.to positively promote Shadow of Mordor on the popular media platform.
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The Federal Trade Commission says Warner Bros. has agreed to settle charges that it deceived consumers by not properly disclosing that it paid those with big followings on YouTube and social media to promote a video game.
Social media marketing campaigns are supposed to get people’s attention, but this is probably not the kind of engagement Warner Bros. was looking for. The FTC said that any disclosures made came within the video’s description box where they were not immediately recognizable, enough to be deceptive under its standards.
“We weren’t required to disclose”, said Kjellberg. Other digital influencers enlisted by WB for the “Shadow of Mordor” promos, according to the FTC, included I Am Wildcat, Silentc0re and Siv HD. His PewDiePie channel on YouTube has more than 46 million subscribers and he has more than eight million Twitter followers.
While PewDiePie agrees that he could have done more to make his working relationship with Warner Bros. more obvious, he points out how taking part in sponsorship deals was a “gray area” in 2014, and that he will now state his affiliation with a company both in his videos and in their description boxes. The Youtuber proves that the story is a complete lie in this most recent video called The PewDiePie “Scandal”!!
“Consumers have the right to know if reviewers are providing their own opinions or paid sales pitches”, said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
The FTC concluded that this was decieving viewers and that “Companies like Warner Brothers need to be straight with consumers in their online ad campaigns”.
Warner Bros. allegedly failed to require the influencers to inform viewers that what they were watching was sponsored content.
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“Yes, I could have disclosed [the sponsorship arrangement] better”, he said. “So basically, all of these news articles are using me as a clickbait, putting my name to shame, when I didn’t even do anything wrong”.
