Disclosure in giveaways: who has to say what

Not legal advice, and the specifics differ by country. The principle behind most disclosure rules, though, is consistent enough to work with: if there is a commercial relationship behind a recommendation, the audience should be able to see it without hunting for it.

When a giveaway counts as promotional content

Most giveaways involving a brand do, including the arrangements people assume are casual:

• The brand paid for the post
• The brand supplied the prize for free
• The creator receives product, commission or affiliate revenue
• The giveaway is co-hosted with a business, even without money changing hands

The second one surprises people most. A prize given to you for free is something of value received in exchange for a post — which is the relationship disclosure exists to reveal.

Both sides have something to do

The creator discloses the relationship. The brand is usually expected to have told the creator what the obligations are, and in many jurisdictions is responsible for its own promotion complying — including the rules, the eligibility and the prize being delivered as described.

For a co-hosted giveaway, the practical question is one both sides should answer in writing before the post: who is the promoter? That decides who writes the rules, who holds the entry data, who ships the prize, and who answers when something goes wrong. A co-host arrangement where that was never agreed is the one that ends badly.

Where the disclosure has to be

Visible without effort: at the start of the caption rather than buried, in the post itself rather than in a comment, and not only in the platform's own paid-partnership label — which helps but is not under your control and does not travel when the content is reshared.

The common mistakes are all the same mistake, which is making the audience work for it: a hashtag at the end of a long caption, disclosure behind the "more" cut, a tag added as a reply after publishing, or wording so vague it does not describe the relationship. "Thanks to" and a hashtag nobody recognises are not disclosure.

The clearer wording is the plainer wording

Say what it is: that this is a paid partnership, or that the brand provided the prize. Plain language does the job better than an abbreviation, because the test applied is whether an ordinary reader understood — and abbreviations have failed that test in enforcement actions in more than one market.

It also survives being reshared, which the platform's own label does not.

What the brand should get in writing

Before the giveaway goes live, four things settled between brand and creator: who the promoter is, who writes and publishes the rules, who ships the prize and by when, and what happens if the winner does not reply.

That last one causes real friction in partnerships, because the creator announces the winner and the brand ships — so a silent winner leaves the creator explaining a delay they cannot fix. A reply deadline published in the rules, and a backup drawn in the same draw, removes the whole situation.

Disclosure and trust point the same way

There is an argument that disclosure costs engagement. What costs more is an audience working out the relationship themselves after the fact — because the next question is whether the winner was real, and the one after that is whether the draw was.

A giveaway that says plainly who paid for it and publishes a result anyone can verify has nothing left to be suspicious about. That is a cheaper position to hold than the alternative.

Rafflecopter's result page is public and shows which entrants were drawn from and when — useful in a partnership, because both the brand and the audience can check the same record.