The National Advertising Division announced that it has expanded its Fast-Track SWIFT process, an expedited path for single-issue truth-in-advertising cases, to accept challenges of misleading implied claims.

NAD launched the fast-track challenge process in April 2020 to address “the need for quick resolution of truth and transparency issues that arise in digital advertising,” providing decisions within 20 business days.  SWIFT differs from NAD’s standard track by limiting challenges to a single issue, allowing only one substantive submission per party, and holding meetings only at NAD’s discretion.  Upon its launch, the SWIFT process accepted three types of claims for consideration: the prominence and sufficiency of disclosures in influencer marketing and native advertising; misleading pricing and sales claims; and misleading express claims that do not require review of complex evidence or substantiation, such as clinical or technical testing or consumer perception evidence.

In November 2021, NAD rolled out a new “streamlined” mechanism to help encourage use of the SWIFT process for disclosure cases, with hopes of popularizing the process for influencer marketing, consumer reviews and dark pattern issues.

Now, NAD is expanding SWIFT so that all single-issue claims, both express and implied, that do not require review of complex evidence or substantiation are eligible.  Ultimately, NAD determined that the previous express claim limitation prevented the review of certain simple cases that could have been resolved in the 20-day window.  NAD also removed the previous page limitation for evidence submitted in support or defense of a challenge.  

In sum, NAD now accepts the following types of claims for Fast-Track SWIFT challenges:

• Misleading express or implied claims that do not require review of complex evidence or substantiation such as clinical or technical testing or consumer perception evidence;
• The prominence or sufficiency of disclosures including disclosure issues in influencer marketing, native advertising, and incentivized reviews; and
• Misleading price and sales claims.