Edelweiss Advertising Policy

At Edelweiss, we believe maintaining a high customer experience bar for the ads we serve helps us drive better results for you, our advertisers. To reflect that, all advertising content must be appropriate for a general audience and for the type of placement in which it will be displayed. As an advertiser using Edelweiss, it is your responsibility to make sure that both you and your ads comply with all applicable laws, rules, regulations, and industry standards in each geographical area where the advertisements may appear. You must be honest about the products or services that you promote and must avoid content that may mislead or offend our customers. Our policies are not intended as legal advice. We encourage you to consult with your legal advisor if you have questions about the laws and regulations concerning your ads.

 

Edelweiss reserves the right to reject, remove, or request modifications to an ad in its sole discretion for any reason. Edelweiss may suspend or terminate your ad account(s) for any lawful reason, including, without limitation, severe or repeated Ad Policy violations. We periodically update our policies. Please check this page often to ensure that you are always up to date on our latest policy requirements.

 

Cancellations must be made 60 days in advance of run-date. No refunds will be issued if reservation is cancelled less than 60 days before the newsletter/promotion run date.

 

Throughout this document, we refer to advertisers as “you/your” and to ad placements or paid promotions on Edelweiss as “ads.” You may only promote books, products, and/or services that you either own or are authorized to resell or distribute.

These guidelines apply to all paid promotions on any Edelweiss platform or email communication or campaign, including Edelweiss, Edelweiss Community, and Edelweiss360. These guidelines apply to advertising that includes artwork (such as a banner ad) as well as paid content that promotes a title or product that is listed on an Edelweiss platform (such as a book jacket cover, featured review, and/or book description).

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The following are prohibited on all ads:

• Hate speech. The United Nations' definition of hate speech is "any kind of communication in speech, writing, or behavior that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are."

• Misspellings and grammatical errors such as a wrong verb tense. Slang or wordplay may be permitted if otherwise compliant with these policies.

• Random capitalization except for common abbreviations or trademarks.

• Improper punctuation such as repeated questions or exclamation marks (“!!!”).

• Special characters and emojis, except when part of the advertiser’s logo or included on the product image. Hashtags (#) are permitted if they do not contain inappropriate content.

• Ad copy that uses personalized language (such as “you/your”) which may be perceived by a customer as if you are addressing him/her directly and that may cause customer discomfort.

• Ad copy that acknowledges or implies the targeting criteria used for the campaign. For example, an ad copy reading “Did you enjoy your recent purchase of [book]? You’ll love this book!”

• Inconsistency between ad copy and landing page. You must present the same offer or product both in your ad copy and on your landing page.

• Promotion of the sale of products that are out-of-stock, back-ordered, or under recall or services that are unavailable for purchase at the time that the campaign runs. Ads for products that are only available for pre-order are permitted if this is clear in the ad, for example, by using a “pre-order” call to action (CTA).

• Landing pages consisting solely of a sign up/registration form. Your landing page should expand on your ad's message and provide a satisfactory experience before the customer is forced to enter their info to find out more.

• Interactive ad elements that are not appropriately placed. Inappropriately placed interactive elements like call to action (CTA) buttons, sliders, or video playback buttons can cause customer discomfort.

• Children in adult or dangerous situations. For example, ads must not show children close to or handling firearms or other weapons, or in situations which may contravene established child safety best practices.

• Content that is directly targeted at or that appeals to children due to the messaging, imagery, or targeting.

• Emotionally draining or exploitative content, including content that portrays abused humans or animals.

• Content that promotes practices that can result in the physical or mental harm of customers.

• Content that encourages, glamorizes, or depicts excessive consumption of drugs or alcohol.

• Excessive violence or gore.

• Exploitation of sensitive events such as natural disasters, human-caused disasters, incidents of mass trauma and/or casualties, or the death of public figures.

• Full nudity, defined as fully visible intimate parts including genitals, breast, and buttocks.

• Obscene, controversial, defamatory, libelous, illegal, or invasive of another's privacy.

• Political content such as campaigns for or against a politician or a political party, related to an election, or content related to political issues of public debate.

• Content that revolves around controversial or highly debated social topics.

• Erotica, pornography, or explicit sexual practices or preferences.

• Foul, vulgar, or obscene language or language containing profanity, including obscured profanity (such as s@#t or WTF), graphic or suggestive language, double meanings, or scatological references.

• Religious advocacy - either advocating for or demeaning any religion.

• Threatening, abusive, or harassing content, or content that advocates or discriminates against a protected group (whether based on race, color, national origin, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, disability, age, or any similar or another category).

• Content that promotes products or services not related to books, book-related items, or products/services for book professionals.

• Content that infers or claims to diagnose, treat, or question gender identity or sexual orientation.

• Content that encourages or promotes vandalism, anti-social behavior, or the defacing of public or private property.

• Content that claims to diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent a disease or addiction.

• Content that promotes practices that can result in physical or mental harm.

• Content that may infringe, encourage, or enable, the infringement of intellectual property or personal rights.

• Cruelty toward people or animals.

• Deceptive, false, or misleading content.

• Content that violates our guidelines.

 

Guidelines

 

We apply a high bar to ad content to ensure a consistent, high-quality customer experience. Ads must be clean, grammatically correct, and professional just like the rest of the content on Edelweiss properties. The policies in this section apply to all ads and serve to ensure a minimum quality bar.

 

Advertiser Branding

Your brand name or logo must be clearly visible in the ad to ensure that customers can readily identify you as the advertiser. If an ad features both your brand name or logo and an Edelweiss logo, your brand name or logo must be the largest and most prominent unless prior permission was granted by Edelweiss. Ads must not mimic Edelweiss content.

 

Background Colors and Borders

Customers must be able to distinguish ads from non-sponsored content on the page. Edelweiss imposes certain restrictions on background colors and design to ensure that ads are distinct from non-sponsored content on the page, and that customers can identify the clickable spaces associated with an ad. Ads without borders cannot feature white or light grey background color that may blend in with native content within the platform or email.

 

Distracting Ads

Animation features and other interactive elements in ads must be engaging, complement the customer experience, and not distract or deceive.

 

Fake Functionality

Fake functionality can trick customers into clicking on ads by believing that certain inactive elements of an ad are interactive and can provide value to them. Ad elements that a customer would usually expect to be able to interact with must be functional.

 

Image Quality & Rights

Images in ads must meet the file size, resolution, and file type restrictions that are specified per size/placement. Prohibited low-quality images include but are not limited to crowded, blurry, distorted, low-resolution, pixelated, smudged, or stretched images. You must own the rights for all images, including without limitation, rights in contract, copyright, and publicity.

 

Advertising Copy & Claims

Ads must be clear and accurate so that customers receive correct information before engaging with an ad or deciding to purchase a product. They should be free of grammatical or spelling errors. Advertising claims must be accurate, truthful, and substantiated.

 

Comparative Advertising

Ads on Edelweiss cannot explicitly call out your competitors or competitors of Edelweiss. Ads may include references to a “leading brand” or another generic phrasing.

 

Customer Reviews and Ratings

You may use editorial and expert reviews if the source of the review is identified in the ad. Multiple customer reviews cannot be combined into a single review. Customer reviews must be suitable for all audiences. Customer reviews must:

• Be genuine and not induced or paid.

• Relate to the specific product advertised.

• Be discoverable.

• Not be changed. Truncations must not alter the meaning of the review. Omissions to portions of customer reviews are permissible through the use of ellipses: (“…”) with no spaces before or after.

• Not compare the product promoted to a competing product by name.

• Not contain references to medical conditions, profanities, emojis, or other special characters.

 

Disclosures 

Disclosures must be accurate, legible (both in size and contrast with the background of the ad), and understandable to the average customer.

 

Free Offers

When free products or services promoted are dependent on a purchase, you must indicate that terms and conditions apply in your ad copy. The terms and conditions, or a link to terms and conditions, must be clearly presented in the ad close to the offer.

 

Language

Ads must be in the primary language of the site on which they appear. In most cases for Edelweiss properties, this is English.

 

Font Sizes and Maximum Word Count

Ads display on many different screen types and sizes. Minimum font sizes and word count requirements ensure that text in ads is readable on screens of varying type, size, and resolution. Please review the appropriate ad specs for more details.

Ads must be legible. The text must be big enough to be readable to the average customer. Ads cannot use the same or similar color for text and background because the text will not be legible (for example, white text on light gray background).

 

Pressuring Language 

Edelweiss prohibits pressuring language to avoid creating a sense of urgency which may be disruptive to the customer’s experience.  Ads must engage customers without appearing to shout at or pressure them. Ads must not contain:

• Pressuring language that creates a sense of urgency.

• Repeated exclamation or question marks.

• Any end punctuation in calls to action (for example, “Buy now!”)

• Any combination of two or more of the following elements: copy in ALL CAPS, punctuation marks, large font sizes (for example, “AMAZING SUMMER DEALS!”).

Books on Drugs

For books whose content is related to illegal drugs, drug abuse, and drug-related activities, ads must not:

• Promote or glorify the consumption or use of illegal drugs and related paraphernalia.

• Promote or glorify the abuse of legal or prescription drugs.

• Provide guidance on the preparation of drugs and related paraphernalia.

• Promote the drug trade.

• Make claims to cure drug addictions.

• Contain images of drug use.

 

Political Books

For books related to elections, politicians, or that have politics as a central theme, ads are permitted for:

• Works of fiction with political themes.

• Non-fiction books about politics in general or political science (for example, an historical book about a former US president, or a book about the evolution of a political party in the past 100 years).

Ads are not permitted for:

• Books that contain a personal attack on a specific political candidate or elected official.

• During an election cycle: Books about a specific political party, issue, or candidate.

 

Weapons

Weapons include firearms, swords, cross bows and other inherently violent objects. Weapons (including realistic and non-realistic firearms, swords, bows and arrows, etc.) must not be shown:

• In a violent, threatening manner, for example in the process of injuring another character.

• In a gruesome way (for example, covered in blood).

• Pointed at a character.

• Directed out toward the customer.

• Handled by or associated with a minor.