Forgot the #ad? Korea's rules for disclosing a sponsored post just got stricter

A brand sends free skincare, or an actual fee, and asks for one honest-looking post about it. You film it the same way you'd film anything else, edit it the same way, publish it the same way — nothing marked, nothing different. It doesn't feel like an ad. Legally, it is one, and Korea's Fair Trade Commission (FTC, 공정거래위원회) has rewritten exactly how that has to look twice in under two years.

• Sept 1, 2020Disclosure of paid or gifted posts became mandatory
• Dec 1, 2024The label moved from "top or bottom" to "top only"
• Jun 1, 2026AI-generated "virtual people" in ads must now be labeled too

This isn't only a Korean-influencer problem

The rule sits inside Korea's Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising, and it applies to anyone posting content a Korean audience will see — not to Korean nationals specifically. If a brand in Korea pays you, sends you free product worth keeping, gives you a discount, or shares revenue with you in exchange for a post, that's an economic relationship the FTC's guideline requires you to disclose, whether you're Korean, an expat, or a foreign resident three months into your first campaign.

What actually counts as a disclosure

The FTC's own "Easy-to-Find Living Law" portal spells out both sides of this. A disclosure has to sit somewhere a viewer can't miss it, in a font size and color that stands out from the background, and in wording that plainly says money or product changed hands.

Quick Hop: for video, that means the disclosure in the title or overlaid at the start — and shown again, not just once, wherever the sponsored segment actually plays. A single line in the description box under a 10-minute video isn't enough on its own.

The newest layer: an AI face isn't automatically disclosed as one

As of June 1, 2026, the guideline added a category nobody needed in 2020: advertising built around a virtual person generated by AI. If a brand's campaign uses an AI-generated avatar, a deepfaked face, or a similarly synthetic "spokesperson," that now has to be labeled as such — a line like "AI를 기반으로 생성된 가상인물이 포함된 게시물입니다" (this post includes an AI-generated virtual person) at the title or opening for text-based posts, and the word "가상인물" (virtual person) kept visible near the figure for video or image content. A convincing face isn't grounds to skip the disclosure that a real economic relationship still requires either.

What we see at Soo House

Soo House matches foreign residents and expats in Korea with paid brand campaigns, castings and creator classes through Discover — and the "do I actually need to write anything special" question comes up almost every time a member lands their first sponsored post, not because anyone's trying to hide it, but because nobody told them the label had a required shape. Our K-Beauty Content class, pictured above, teaches members how to shoot and edit clean branded content — and disclosure is part of that conversation, not an afterthought bolted onto the lighting tips, because a beautifully shot video with the wrong caption is still a video that breaks the rule.

The pattern we've watched repeat: it's rarely the first free product that gets flagged. It's the fourth or fifth brand deal, once a member has quietly become exactly the kind of "regular, paid creator" the FTC's guideline is written for — the same shift our taxes for creators guide describes happening to their tax status at almost the same moment.

Your Next Hop

If you've got a sponsored post live right now, open it and check two things: is the disclosure in the title or the very first line, not buried under the hashtags — and does the wording actually say "광고" or "협찬," not just a tag or an English acronym. If either is missing, editing the caption today is a five-minute fix; leaving it is the version that costs more later.

Checked September 24, 2026, against the Fair Trade Commission's own notice on the June 1, 2026 revision (the AI-generated virtual person disclosure rule), the FTC's December 2024 revision notice (moving the disclosure location to the post's title or opening), and the government's official policy briefing on the original September 1, 2020 guideline. Accepted and rejected disclosure wording, placement standards, and the penalty structure under the Act on Fair Labeling and Advertising are drawn from the Ministry of Government Legislation's Easy-to-Find Living Law Information portal, cross-checked against contemporaneous reporting from SBS News on enforcement against both advertisers and creators. Whether a specific post or arrangement triggers this rule depends on your own facts — confirm with the FTC (국번없이 1372, the consumer counseling line) or a Korean advertising-law counsel before assuming either way.