Advertising & Marketing 2025

The Advertising & Marketing 2025 guide features close to 20 jurisdictions. The guide provides the latest legal information on advertising law and regulatory bodies; advertising claims, including deceptive claims, substantiation, endorsements, environmental claims and “dark patterns”; comparative advertising and ambush marketing; digital/social media; privacy issues; AI; and product compliance.

Last Updated: October 14, 2025

Compare law and practice by selecting locations and topic(s)

Select Locations

Select Topic(s)

{{topic.Title}}

Please select at least one location and one topic to use the compare functionality.

Compare

Author



Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz was founded nearly 50 years ago as a boutique law firm servicing the entertainment and arts communities in New York City and now provides the highest-quality legal services to clients in a wide range of industries and disciplines worldwide. Frankfurt Kurnit’s advertising practice – which is counsel to many of the USA’s leading brands, advertising agencies and platforms – is universally recognised as one of the leading advertising and marketing practices in the USA.


From AI to Environmental Marketing: How Advertising and Marketing Laws Are Evolving Globally

We live in a global marketplace. Whether relying on traditional distribution channels or the opportunities posed by e-commerce, marketers are looking globally to advertise and sell their products and services. While this ever-expanding marketplace provides enormous opportunities for brands, it also presents significant compliance challenges that are becoming even more difficult to navigate in today’s very complicated geopolitical environment.

Advertising is heavily regulated around the world and, in some cases, the laws governing advertising and marketing practices in countries can vary widely. Jurisdictions also approach the regulation of advertising in many different ways. Some rely on general consumer protection laws, others have detailed rules that govern specific marketing practices, and some rely more heavily on advertising self-regulatory organisations.

There are also significant differences in the level of oversight that jurisdictions provide before advertising is published. For example, some jurisdictions require most advertising materials to be approved before publication, while others only require certain types to be pre-approved. In some places, self-regulatory and media organisations play an important role in pre-approving advertising as well. There are also jurisdictions where few, if any, pre-approvals are required.

The legal risks that marketers face around the world also vary widely. Some jurisdictions have regulators that aggressively challenge advertising claims, while others have regulators that rarely take action. Although many jurisdictions also have advertising self-regulatory programmes that provide guidance on advertising practices, bring challenges, and resolve advertising disputes, others do not. Private litigation – challenges both by competitors and consumers – plays an important role in policing advertising claims in some jurisdictions, while other jurisdictions are far less litigious. The remedies that are available vary widely as well, depending on how the claims are brought.

Substantiating advertising claims

It should come as no surprise that advertising laws around the world generally require marketers to ensure that their claims are truthful and not misleading and that they have proof to back them up. Ensuring that claims are truthful and properly substantiated is certainly an important first step in any global marketing campaign. Marketers should pay close attention, however, to the differences in how claims are interpreted, to country-specific rules for making certain types of claims, to the level of proof required to back up their claims, and to what obligations marketers have to make that proof available to the public.

Although there are many developments in this area globally that may impact marketers, one trend that is worth paying attention to is the increasing importance that legislators and others are placing on obtaining third-party certification of claims being made. There is also increased interest in requiring marketers to be transparent about the support that they have for their claims.

Complying with local laws and cultural norms

It should also not be too much of a surprise to marketers that some marketing practices that are perfectly legal in one jurisdiction – such as comparative advertising, advertising of alcohol, or inviting consumers to enter for a chance to win a prize – are going to be heavily restricted or prohibited in others. Although there are certainly many similarities among countries’ laws, there is simply no substitute for getting local advice from experienced advertising counsel about planned advertising campaigns.

Getting expert local advice helps with more than just legal compliance, however. Often, the trouble that advertisers run into when advertising in foreign jurisdictions relates less to legal compliance and more to simply not understanding the cultural norms in that country. For example, an advertising campaign that references religion or politics in one country may not cause consumers to blink an eye, while in another it could cause widespread offence (or even violate the law).

Enforcement and litigation often tracks key consumer concerns

The development of new advertising rules, the areas where regulators and self-regulators focus the enforcement efforts, and the types of private lawsuits that are brought often closely track the kinds of issues that cause widespread concern for consumers around the world. As a result, there are often significant developments related to certain types of marketing practices in many jurisdictions at around the same time.

The widespread, increased concern over climate change is leading regulators and others to pay much closer attention to environmental marketing. In a number of jurisdictions, not only are we seeing new laws and self-regulatory guidance coming into effect, but there is an increase in enforcement and private litigation as well. With the environmental marketing landscape having changed so much in the past decade, regulators and others are attempting to provide the rules of the road for the types of claims that marketers are using today, such as claims about sustainability and carbon neutrality.

As so much of the global economy is dependent on the online ecosystem, there is also a great deal of attention being paid around the world to marketing on the internet and the ways in which online marketing can harm consumers and competition.

One core principle that marketers should be aware of is that consumers generally have the right to know when they are being advertised to. Although the definition of what constitutes “advertising” varies by jurisdiction, advertisers should ensure ‒ when engaging influencers to speak on their behalf, when producing native advertising, or when engaging in other marketing practices where it may not be clear to consumers what is happening ‒ that they clearly and conspicuously disclose to consumers that they are, in fact, being exposed to advertising.

Regulators and self-regulatory authorities around the world are also becoming increasingly concerned about the use of so-called “dark patterns”, which are commonly understood to be online design practices that trick or manipulate users into making choices they would not otherwise have made or that may cause harm. Dark patterns can take many forms, such as deceptive advertising formats, claims that create undue urgency, coercive advertising techniques (such as shaming consumers into making a particular choice), or preventing consumers from easily cancelling a subscription. While the rules and self-regulatory guidance on dark patterns are still evolving, advertisers should consider upfront whether they are just engaging in effective marketing or whether their marketing practices will be seen as improperly coercive.

The use of online disclosures is getting increased attention as well. When disclosures are required to ensure that an advertising claim is not misleading, regulators are asking the question of whether online disclosures are effective. Although “one click away” may have been sufficient 20 years ago, this is less likely to be the case today. As the US Federal Trade Commission has expressed recently, in order for an online disclosure to be effective, it should be “unavoidable”.

The rise of AI poses tremendous opportunities for marketers and consumers, but regulators and legislators are already expressing serious concerns about the potential harm that AI can cause, which is leading to new rules and guidance. As this area continues to evolve, at a minimum, marketers should ensure that they do not use AI tools in ways that can harm or deceive consumers. Marketers should also pay close attention to local rules – which vary widely – about their obligation to disclose when generative AI has been used to produce advertising materials.

Final word

Preventing serious consumer harm – whether online or offline – continues to drive many regulatory and self-regulatory developments around the world. Advertisers are well-advised to exercise extra caution when making health claims, advertising unhealthy food, promoting products that can cause consumers serious financial harm, and marketing to children and other more vulnerable audiences.

The country-by-country guidance presented in this guide provides a great introduction to these and many other important advertising law issues. While there is no substitute for engaging expert counsel in the relevant jurisdiction to advise you, this guidance will prompt readers to begin thinking about these topics and should give a good sense of some key issues to consider when developing marketing campaigns.

Author



Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz was founded nearly 50 years ago as a boutique law firm servicing the entertainment and arts communities in New York City and now provides the highest-quality legal services to clients in a wide range of industries and disciplines worldwide. Frankfurt Kurnit’s advertising practice – which is counsel to many of the USA’s leading brands, advertising agencies and platforms – is universally recognised as one of the leading advertising and marketing practices in the USA.