A publicidade oculta utilizada como estratégia de venda pelos denominados digital influencers nas redes sociais e a falta de regulamentação específica no Código de Defesa do Consumidor

Abstract

The resulting technological evolution from the 4th industrial revolution has provided great advances in the internet, with better connectivity, speed and potential for the contemporary world. Therefore, the changes that most stood out in society, for making everything closer and easier, was the connectivity between people, the access democratization to communication and information. This new and more connected virtual world, made the emergence of a very powerful figure called the digital influencer. They are people who has enormous power of voice and influence on social networks, once they act in a simple and relaxed way when they are exposing their daily routines and opinions to thousands of followers. Therefore, companies and brands invested in these influencers to carry out advertising on these networks. However, many of these advertising activities are being published in a hidden way, that means, it is not clear identified to the consumer that it is a paid promotion. In addition, this hidden advertising strategy carried out by digital influencers has no specific regulation at the CDC, it has only valid interpretations. The one entity that seeks to inhibit such activities is CONAR, but it acts only with an ethical character, with no coercive power. So, the present work aims to analyze whether this lack of proper regulation make things easier to the influencer do those hidden advertising, in order to manipulate the consumption decision. The approach method of this study is exploratory and descriptive and was written using secondary sources, including bibliographic review. It also examines the history of the internet from the perspective of the social network, highlighting the role of the influencer and his power of communication, especially in consumer behavior when making the purchase decision, finally showing the cases of hidden advertising by influencers and the ineffectiveness of this control. This leads to the conclusion that digital influencers manipulate the consumer on purchase decision, especially when such an opinion appears as a friendly advice and not properly identified as an advertising activity, given that the current lack of specific legislation and the insufficient performance of CONAR to regulate such an issue which is increasingly prevalent and which, above everything, directly affects the consumer