Digital merchandising in the light of consumer protection rules

Merchandising is an advertising technique characterised by offering products or services to the consumer market without the explicit characteristics of an advertisement. Recently, the use of merchandising on social networks has been observed, especially through advertising on public profiles (accounts or IG). Despite the popularisation of merchandising, the Consumer Defence Code (CDC), precisely in art. 36, contains the principle of mandatory identification of the advertising message. The great challenge in this area is to distinguish the authentic use of products and services by social media profiles from the sponsored use of products or services posted on profiles for advertising purposes. With its interdisciplinary nature, this book is of great relevance to legal and marketing professionals, as well as to anyone looking to use social networks as a means of marketing. It is also of great interest to consumer users, so that they have a vision of current marketing, are aware of the rules that provide protection against offensive advertising and realise that they are great potential advertisers.