The Scoop on PromotionsProject Support Team Blog

February 5th, 2010

CARU’s Guidlines

In today’s world, the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) has its work cut out for them to stay on top of the latest and greatest social networking and marketing trends as it relates to advertising to our children. As defined on their site, www.caru.org, CARU is a non-profit organization that fosters truth and accuracy in advertising directed to children who are under 13.

Based on the high standards they have set for the industry, CARU monitors current advertising directed to children to ensure it’s fair and appropriate. To assist advertisers in advance of releasing advertisements, CARU has published a Guidelines document which may be downloaded from their site at http://www.caru.org/guidelines/index.aspx. The Guidelines document shares an overview of CARU and their general guidelines covering deception, product presentations, material disclosures and disclaimers, endorsements, blurring of advertising/content, premiums and promotions, unsafe/inappropriate advertising, etc. In addition, CARU has included a section surrounding issues specific to websites targeting children under 13; online sales, online privacy protection and data collection, age screening and hyperlinks. In fact, these Guidelines were used as the foundation for the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA).

We can be sure that as the world of technology evolves so will the Guidelines that are set in place to help protect young kids. That being said, if your target audience is 13 and younger, caru.org is a great location to frequent.