The commercial collaboration disclosure is not a vocabulary problem, it is a question of who owes it. The wording to be written barely moves from one campaign to the next, whereas the obligation changes hands depending on the account the video goes out from.
A brand that orders a video from a creator is really buying one of the three distribution patterns below, and a legal team that reviews the brief without having settled which one approves a disclosure that covers nobody. The useful question is therefore not "which wording", it is "who publishes, on which channel, and for how long".
Three situations, not one rule
The creator publishes on their own account. This is the case the loi du 9 juin 2023 on commercial influence (the French influencer law) was written for. Whoever posts has to signal the commercial nature of the content to the people watching it, in a form that is clear and legible, and it is their account that carries the breach.
The brand runs the file on its own channels. The creator has published nothing: they delivered raw footage, and the brand turns it into advertising on its page, in its checkout funnel or in a paid campaign. The influencer law targets no one here, and the code de la consommation (the French consumer code) takes over: a paid video presented as a spontaneous review is a misleading presentation, chargeable to the advertiser alone.
The brand runs ads from the creator's account. This is whitelisting and Spark Ads, the situation where the two regimes stack, since the account on screen belongs to a person and the campaign to a brand. Whitelisting is contracted separately, and the disclosure has to survive the switch into advertising, including on creatives the creator never posted themselves.
| Situation | Governing text | Expected disclosure | Who answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| The creator publishes on their own account | Loi du 9 juin 2023 on commercial influence | « Publicité » or « collaboration commerciale », on the creative | The creator, with the advertiser alongside |
| The brand runs the file on its own channels | Code de la consommation, misleading commercial practices | A presentation that does not imitate a spontaneous review | The advertiser |
| The brand runs ads from the creator's account | Both regimes, stacked | The legal wording in the creative and in the ad copy | The advertiser and the creator |
A product sent for free is a consideration
Plenty of French brands reason as if the obligation began with the bank transfer. It begins with the benefit: a free parcel, an affiliate code, a hotel stay covered, access to a paid service. As soon as a creator publishes because they received something, the post has a consideration behind it, and the public is entitled to know before forming an opinion. The only case genuinely outside the scope is the creator talking about a product they bought themselves, with no tie to the brand and no expectation of getting one.
The word the law imposes, and those that do not stand in for it
France is one of the rare markets where the vocabulary is written into the text. Two wordings are named, « publicité » (advertising) and « collaboration commerciale » (commercial collaboration), and the administration reproduces them as they stand in the documentation it addresses to creators. Writing one of the two closes the discussion, writing anything else opens it.
What brands use instead, as a rule: "#ad", "sponso", "en collab", "partenariat", or the brand name followed by an exclamation mark. None of these forms says in French that this is advertising. "#ad" is an English word, usually buried in a block of fifteen hashtags; "partenariat" describes a relationship between two parties without qualifying the message; "en collab" is a platform shorthand, not information addressed to the viewer.
That leaves the native banner the networks offer, of the paid partnership kind. It helps, it does not replace. Its display depends on a rendering the advertiser does not control, it drops when the video is exported, reposted elsewhere or turned into an ad, and it does not write the words the law names. The safe rule fits on one line of brief: the legal wording is burnt into the creative, the platform banner comes on top.
Where, in which format, for how long
The disclosure is read on what the viewer is watching, not in what surrounds it. A sentence on the eighth line of a description, under a "see more", does not meet the obligation: the public has to know what it is watching at the moment it watches, not after unfolding a caption.
It also lasts as long as the promotion. Someone arriving at the twelfth second of a Reel has to find the information, which rules out the one-second card placed right at the start. The ARPP recommendation on disclaimers and cross-references (ARPP is the French advertising self-regulation body) gives the practical criteria the law does not spell out: sufficient contrast, a size legible on a phone screen, a display time compatible with the time it takes to read.
Format by format, that makes for simple decisions. A Reel or a Short: a permanent overlay at the top of the frame, outside the zones the interface covers. A carousel: the disclosure on the first card and on each of the following cards that promotes. A live: a spoken announcement at the opening and an overlay held for the whole commercial sequence.
The story that disappears in twenty-four hours
A story escapes nothing because it fades. For as long as it is online it promotes, so it carries the disclosure, and on every segment rather than on the first alone, since a viewer can enter through any of them. The case that genuinely causes trouble is the story pinned to a highlight: it becomes permanent again, and the disclosure has to stay on it.
The AI disclosure that stacks
When the image has been retouched or fabricated, a second disclosure is added to the first. A slimmed silhouette, a smoothed complexion, a generated face or voice: the 2023 law requires this to be flagged, with the wordings « images retouchées » (retouched images) or « images virtuelles » (virtual images) depending on the case. It does not replace the commercial disclosure, it displays alongside it, and the fact that a face or a voice has been cloned adds one more authorisation to obtain from the creator.
Who answers, and for what
Three people can be pursued: the creator who publishes, the advertiser who orders, and the agent who brokers. The 2023 law makes them jointly liable for damage caused to third parties in performing the engagement, which means a brand does not put itself in the clear by writing into its contract that the disclosure is the creator's business.
Enforcement belongs to the DGCCRF (the French authority that polices commercial practices), which publishes documentation aimed at creators and runs verification campaigns on accounts. An unflagged commercial post is analysed as a misleading commercial practice, a qualification that opens a criminal penalty, and the fine incurred can be calculated on the spend committed to the operation rather than staying a flat amount, which unhooks the risk from the price of the creative.
One objection comes back at every launch meeting: no brand has ever been pursued over a missing hashtag. It misses the place where the risk materialises. It is almost never the fine, it is a competitor's complaint, a campaign pulled mid-flight, or the platform refusing the creative and suspending the ad account on the morning of the launch.
The creator based outside the European Union
A French brand that calls on a creator established outside the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland, to reach an audience in France, enters a particular regime: the 2023 law asks that creator to appoint a legal representative in the Union and to take out professional liability insurance with a European insurer. This is verified before the order and not after, because a creator who has neither leaves the whole risk with the advertiser.
What the written contract has to contain
Above a remuneration threshold set by decree, the law requires a written contract between the advertiser, the creator and, where applicable, the agent, and it lists what that contract has to carry. It is not one more formality: it is the document that will say, in the event of an inspection, who was responsible for what.
Four lines settle the disclosure itself, and they are written before the shoot.
- The wording chosen, word for word, rather than a reference to "the legal disclosure".
- The placement and the display time, format by format, with the safe zone specific to each platform.
- The distribution perimeter, because a video that moves from the creator's account into a paid campaign changes regime and has to change dressing.
- The name of the person who checks before publication, and what happens if the breach is discovered after the post goes live.
The rest of the contract, licence of rights, term, territory, exclusivity, is dealt with elsewhere: what a licence really costs has nothing to do with advertising compliance, and mixing the two discussions loses both.
Pure UGC, where the creator is not an influencer within the meaning of the law
The 2023 law defines commercial influence by a bundle of criteria: mobilising one's notoriety with an audience, for consideration, to promote goods or services. A creator who shoots three videos in their kitchen, delivers them by download link and posts nothing mobilises no audience; they do not fall within that definition, and the line between micro-influence and UGC is drawn exactly there.
What the brand writes in that case fits on one line, and the brief is the only place where it controls everything: the exact wording, where it appears, and the fact that it is not up for negotiation.
What is never delegated, on the other hand, is the status of advertiser. A brand can ask a creator to burn in the disclosure, it cannot transfer to them the fact that the message is its own.
Sources
- Loi n° 2023-451 du 9 juin 2023 visant à encadrer l'influence commerciale
- DGCCRF, « Influenceurs : quels sont mes devoirs ? »
- ARPP, recommandation Communication publicitaire numérique
- ARPP, recommandation Mentions et renvois
Checked on 19 September 2026. This guide is not legal advice. Where this guide and the official source disagree, the official source prevails.
