The Market Supervision Bureau of Xiamen City recently issued the Compliance Guidelines for Commercial Advertising Endorsement Activities (hereinafter referred to as the Guidelines), giving regulations on "pushing the wishlist", celebrity endorsement of commercial advertisements, and underage endorsement.  

The Guidelines clarify the scenarios which constitute commercial advertising endorsements, including: (1) participation and recommendation made in the name of scientific research institutions, academic institutions, technology promotion institutions, industry associations and other legal persons or other organizations in commercial advertising activities; (2) images in advertisement clearly marked with identity information such as name and occupation, making recommendation or proving advertiser's goods and services; (3) well-known literary and art workers, sports celebrity, experts and scholars, Internet celebrity, social celebrities, etc. making recommendation or proving advertisers' goods and services with their high popularity that are widely known among public, even if their identities are not marked in advertisements; (4) celebrity artists, social celebrities, etc. making recommendation or proving goods and services under the title of "experience officers", "recommendation officers" and "product officers", or in the names of "partners" even if there is no real investment, partnership, labor contract, etc.; (5) celebrity artists, social celebrities, etc. recommending or proving the goods and services in their own names or images in advertisements placed in various shows and film and television works; or (6) participating in the live webcast, and recommending and proving the goods and services in their own name or image in the live webcast marketing activities, if the live broadcast content constitutes a commercial advertisement. 

The Guidelines also distinguish the nature of underage endorsements. With regard to the endorsement advertisement of children under the age of 10, if they are ordinary children and do not indicate their identity in the advertisement (where their identity can be hardly identified by the audience), they are not considered to be advertising in their own name, but only performing in an advertising role, which do not belong to advertising endorsement. However, regarding the endorsement of child star, even if his/her identity is not disclosed in the advertisement, he/she still belongs to the advertising spokesperson because his/her image can be directly recognized by the public. 

The Guidelines further state that commercial advertisements disguised in the form of “pushing the wishlist” is an illegal commercial endorsement behavior if consumers can't identify them as advertisements and are deceived and misled by the advertising content.