An activist group that has been waging an aggressive advertising campaign against “shady tactics” of payday lenders may have misled consumers when it used the logo of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in an advocacy video without the agency’s permission.
Chicago-based National People’s Action released the video Sept. 24. The video is called “Preyday Lenders” and harshly criticizes payday lenders who offer short-term loans to consumers. The organization charges in the video that payday lending companies use “underhanded business practices.”
The liberal-leaning group said the video is part of an “aggressive campaign” to push for the most stringent possible rules on the industry. The CFPB is currently writing new regulations for the industry.
An official CFPB logo appears at the end of the video, suggesting the agency endorsed or approved of the video, but a bureau spokesman said that was not the case.
“The CFPB was not aware of this use of our logo, nor did we play any role in producing or financing the advertisement. Our logo is available on our website for members of the press to use when referencing the Bureau,” said Samuel Gilford, a CFPB spokesman.
Gilford’s reference to media use of the logo is called “fair use” which means the use is in the public interest. Copyright law prohibits the private use of logos “without permission,” or “in a way that implies endorsement by a U.S. government agency, official, or employee,” according to USA.gov.
Advertising ethicists condemned the unauthorized use of a federal agency logo in the video.
“I don’t know how you can appropriate a name, whether it be a person or an organization without their permission. I don’t see any real justification for doing what they did,” said Brian Steffens, a spokesman for the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
Wally F. Snyder, executive director of the Institute for Advertising Ethics of the American Advertising Federation, said the ad misleads viewers who would assume CFPB endorsed the ad.
“The ethics here would require not using an endorsement that hasn’t been granted. What we’re really talking about is ethics to the consumer public,” Snyder said. “The whole point is transparency.”
“It’s important consumers understand whose advertisement this is and then when you get to the point about endorsements, it’s really is important that this group absolutely endorsed it because it could convey authenticity or additional quality to the ad,” he said.
NPA did not respond to a request for comment.
But Alec Saslow, a senior director of media relations at FitzGibbon Media, NPA’s public relations agent, said the video would be used as “pre-roll” for online videos. He said NPA plans to buy billboards and bus shelter ads. He declined to say how much the ad cost to produce or place.
An NPA press release announcing the campaign said the effort was “a significant investment in digital advertising.”
Peter Barden, a spokesman for the Online Lenders Alliance, which represents online short-term lending companies, said he “would think that a group concerned about deceptive practices would have considered that when placing a regulator’s logo on its advertisement.”
NPA is a network of 30 left liberal “grassroots” organizations based in 17 states. Its website says it has a “fierce reputation for direct action from across the country that work to advance a national economic and racial justice agenda.”
The term “direct action” is a form of confrontation politics that includes sit-ins, civil disobedience and arrests. In May 2013, 12 members of the group were arrested outside a Chicago fundraising event at which President Obama spoke. The group was protesting the administration’s deportation of illegal immigrants.
The NPA raised $14.5 million from 2008 to 2012, according to its 2012 IRS Form 990, including $3.6 million for the last year.
The organization reported that during the same period it spent $93,000 on grassroots and national lobbying. The National People’s Campaign, NPA’s direct lobbying and electoral arm, separately reported in an IRS filing that it raised $79,000 in 2012.
