On the morning of June 4, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave its opinion on the reception, explanation, and revision of the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Advertising.
The draft law stipulates online advertising activities including: advertising in electronic newspapers, electronic information pages, social networks, online applications, digital platforms with Internet connection.
When foreign advertisers have a need to advertise their products, goods, services, organizations, or individuals through cross-border advertising to users in Vietnam, they must go through Vietnamese advertising service businesses.
Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Le Minh Hoan commented that the use of the phrase "advertiser" in the current legal context and practice of cross-border advertising management can cause confusion about the subject.
Mr. Le Minh Hoan analyzed that in Vietnamese, "advertisers" often make listeners think of someone who directly performs advertising behavior, such as the character appearing in the clip, the influencer or the content creator.
However, in the legal context, this term is used to refer to only foreign organizations and individuals who want to bring their products and services to consumers in Vietnam through cross-border platforms. That is, the subject who orders the advertisement does not necessarily have to be the person directly performing the advertising act.
Therefore, the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly proposed a clear and specific adjustment in the direction of "Foreign organizations and individuals who want to promote their products, goods and services to users in Vietnam through the form of cross-border advertising", to avoid confusion.
The Vice Chairman of the National Assembly also proposed adding detailed instructions on how to regulate influential people when participating in online advertising.
After the law is passed, management agencies need to issue specific guidance documents, illustrate typical situations, verify products and declare to influential people.
"Currently, many influencers cannot distinguish between product evaluation, listening, recounting or sharing experiences, or paid advertising, leading to the risk of violating the law," the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly stated.
He said that there should be simple, easy-to-reach guidance tools such as videos, infographics, illustrative Q&A sets, etc. to support this group of people, who are very diverse in age, qualifications, and level of legal knowledge.
The goal of this, according to Mr. Le Minh Hoan, is to both promote the effectiveness of advertising channels in e-commerce and minimize unintentional violations, stemming from confusion between forms of information expression.
The Vice Chairman of the National Assembly shared that when he went to China to work, he heard a story that within just 5 hours, a famous Chinese TikToker stood in a durian garden in Thailand, livestreaming to promote, and the result was that within 5 hours, he sold 650 million USD of durian.
"This story shows the undeniable power of the media and celebrities. That is a huge boost for e-commerce," Mr. Le Minh Hoan emphasized.
However, Mr. Le Minh Hoan also noted that if that power is not properly managed, it will also have great potential risks.
"We have witnessed many cases of abuse and violation of the law, especially from celebrities, artists, and actors.
It is no coincidence that when advertising VinFast cars abroad, the company invited football star David Beckham to stand next to take photos. This is a trend of the times, consumers are consuming according to their idol", said the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly.
