Advertising shall be clearly distinguishable from other information and its content, design and presentation shall ensure that it is recognised as advertising. Information shall not be publicised as part of other information or as part of a television programme, known as ‘surreptitious advertising’.
The basic requirements for advertising are laid down in Section 3 of the Advertising Act.
Advertising shall include the data of the advertiser. This requirement is considered met if the advertisement contains at least one of the following:
- The name of the advertiser
- The Estonian or European Community trade mark thereof which is under registration or has been registered
- The domain name of the advertiser
In the event that an advertisement is publicised in separate stages and the first publicised advertisement did not contain the data of the advertiser, then the data of the advertiser shall be included in the advertisement no later than on the 15th day of the publicising of the first stage of the advertising.
Section 3(4) of the Advertising Act sets out what advertising is not allowed to do. In any event, advertising shall not be contrary to good morals and customs or to other requirements deriving from basic social values, legislation, etc.
Similarly, advertising shall not provide inaccurate information nor suggest that the information presented has a scientific basis if it actually does not. Advertising shall not claim or suggest that the goods or services have special features if such features are characteristic to all similar goods or services of the same type. Advertising shall not refer to properties of the goods or services which cure, treat, mitigate or prevent diseases, malfunctioning or malformations, except in the cases provided by law. This point refers to informing the consumer of the specific features of the goods or services.
The ban concerns, for example, the advertising of food products and various health products/food supplements, which, in the interest of consumer protection, shall not be linked to the prevention, control, alleviation or treatment of a disease or malfunctioning. The use of medical indications is generally only allowed for medicinal products.
For more information, visit the homepage of the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority.