Social Issue Ad Authorization for Commercial Brands

Most brands who need this work are not political. A sustainability campaign, a Pride creative, a hiring post about immigration policy, a beverage brand talking about agricultural labour — Meta classifies advertising like that under social issues, elections and politics. Google's election ads verification generally does not reach it, because that programme is drawn around candidates, parties and ballot measures. TikTok does not permit political advertising at all. LinkedIn does not accept it either. One brief, four answers, and the first deliverable here is which of the four applies to yours. Why the decision comes before the authorisation: Authorising is not a formality with no cost. Once a disclaimer is attached, the advertising enters a public ad library with a seven-year retention, tied to a verified individual and a named payer. For a commercial brand that is a permanent, searchable record that its marketing was political, available to any journalist, competitor or acquirer who looks. Often the better answer is a creative change that takes the campaign out of scope, and we will show you the two or three lines doing the classifying before you spend anything on authorisation. What the scope determination contains: Each creative marked in scope, out of scope, or removable, with the language or the imagery that triggers classification quoted directly. Where a change removes it, the changed line is written out for you. Where it does not — because the campaign is genuinely about the issue and that is the point — we say the campaign should either authorise or not run. We do not offer a third option that quietly hopes the classifier misses it. If you authorise: Entity verification and individual identity verification are separate steps with separate failure modes, and the individual whose identity is attached should be chosen deliberately rather than being whoever had the laptop open. The payer entity named on the disclaimer has consequences beyond the platform. We set the disclaimer, confirm the ads appear in the library the way you expect, and check whether any legacy creative in the account has been reclassified retroactively. Synthetic media and state law: If any part of the creative came from a generative tool, tell us at the start. Election advertising policy now carries synthetic content disclosure requirements on the platform side, and several states — California, Michigan and Washington among them — impose their own disclosure obligations and timing windows on political and issue advertising. Separately, state disclosure statutes have led platforms to stop selling state and local political advertising in some jurisdictions outright, Washington being the standing example, so a national buy that includes them is a stop rather than a targeting note. Who we do not work for: Candidate committees, party organisations, PACs, ballot measure committees, and anyone acting for or on behalf of a foreign principal. Not as a values statement: it is a different practice with different obligations and we are not it. We work for commercial advertisers who have landed in the political classification, alongside your election counsel where you have one. Not included: We are not a law firm and give no legal advice. Questions about federal or state registration, reporting, and whether a spend counts as a contribution go to counsel, and we route them there in writing rather than guessing. We do not write your campaign, and we do not lobby a platform to reclassify an ad that is correctly classified.