Advertising Law & Cease-and-Desist Letters

Advertising Law & Cease-and-Desist Letters The two-day seminar for everyone responsible for advertising online: you learn what is allowed, which details are mandatory and how to react to a cease-and-desist letter without making expensive mistakes. By the end you know the five places in your presence that cause the most trouble.

Advertising Law & Cease-and-Desist Letters at a glance

• Format: 2 days on site + self-learning track
• Level: basic to advanced
• Participants: max. 16 people
• Language: German (English on request)
• Certificate: AEI certificate of attendance
• Investment: €290.00 plus VAT

A cease-and-desist letter rarely arrives because of a big lie. It arrives because something is missing: the unit price, the crossed-out price is too old, the imprint is incomplete, or an Instagram story lacks the note about a paid partnership.

The trouble is double. Besides the declaration with costs there is a repeat risk: whoever does not know the cause makes the same mistake somewhere else two months later.

This seminar works on both: prevention and correct behaviour in the case. You check your details, build approval processes for campaigns and learn to assess a letter before somebody signs it. Practical, with cases from retail.

What you take away

• A checklist for mandatory details in shop, ads and social media.
• Clarity on price information, crossed-out prices and unit prices.
• Rules for email, newsletter and social media advertising.
• A procedure for assessing a letter and keeping deadlines.
• An approval process that checks campaigns before they go live.

Your learning objectives

• You distinguish permitted advertising from misleading advertising.
• You know the mandatory details for your offering and check them yourself.
• You recognise inadmissible email and social media advertising.
• You assess a letter and know which steps come first.
• You build an approval process that does not depend on one person.

The levers at a glance

Most letters arise from omission. Not from a false claim but from a missing detail. Whoever lists the mandatory details once completely halves the risk.

Prices are the most frequent point of dispute. Crossed-out prices need a provable period, unit prices a correct reference quantity, discounts a real saving. Whoever does not document it cannot prove it.

Advertising needs permission. For email and telephone consent is a condition, not a recommendation. On social media the labelling of partnerships comes on top — visible, not buried in a hashtag pile.

In the case the deadline counts, not the outrage. Whoever checks first and then acts has more options than someone who signs immediately or ignores it. Both are expensive.

The test is the customer, not the lawyer. A claim that misleads a reasonable buyer is enough — no intent required. That is why the question in every campaign is not “is it allowed” but “what would a customer understand”.

Who is this seminar for?

For people responsible for advertising and public presence.

• Marketing and e-commerce leads without a legal department.
• Shop owners who have received a cease-and-desist letter.
• Social media owners working with partnerships.
• Agencies implementing campaigns for clients.

No legal background is required. The rules are explained plainly during the seminar; the task is prevention and process.

The seminar is not legal advice on an individual case. It enables you to recognise risks and ask the right questions.

Investment and dates

Participation costs €290.00 plus VAT, including the self-learning track, materials and certificate of attendance. There are six dates per year in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and live online, plus an in-house variant for teams. You will find all dates in the list on this page.

For the exercises bring current campaigns or product pages if possible. Anyone who has received a letter can contribute it anonymised — the group learns most from that.

After the seminar

You keep the materials, a checklist for mandatory details and a procedure for the case of a letter with deadlines and responsibilities. With that you can review your presence within a week.

The procedure has four steps: check the deadline, check the entitlement, find the cause, agree the declaration. Whoever works in that order does not sign too early and does not miss a deadline.

An approval process needs two things: a short list of checkpoints and one named person who approves. Whoever has both does not debate every campaign again — and can show in the case that a check took place.

Two weeks after the seminar you receive a short follow-up: the places you changed and the ones still open.

For teams the seminar is available as an in-house event with your own campaigns. The procedure stays the same, the examples come from your company.

Programme: 2 days

Day 1 – Advertising law fundamentals

• What advertising may do
• Avoiding misleading claims
• Imprint and labelling
• Price information
• Email and newsletter advertising
• Social media and influencers

Day 2 – Advertising online

• How cease-and-desist letters arise
• Reacting correctly
• Processes and approvals
• Minimising risks

Both days run from 09:00 to 16:15 with breaks in the morning, at midday and in the afternoon. Short self-checks sit between the blocks so you can test where you stand before moving on.

Each day has three parts: an introduction to the pattern, an exercise on your own content and a review in the group. At the end of day one you have checked your mandatory details; on day two your approval process stands.

The seminar includes a self-learning track. It contains the patterns from both days as short units with examples and one self-check each. You can work through it before the date to clarify terms, or afterwards to repeat what stuck and what did not.

Our approach

We work on your content, not on a reading of the statute. At the start of each exercise you decide which claim you are checking and what you promise with it; at the end stands a wording that can be proven.

The exercises are short and repeat in variations. That is deliberate: an eye for risk does not come from listening but from repeatedly checking your own claims against the requirement.

Every block ends with a sentence you could show a colleague: which claim, which requirement, and what changes in the next campaign.

We work in pairs, in small groups and in plenary, with changing partners. Every participant gets feedback on their wording, not just on their question. Group level and participant count are deliberately limited: with 16 people no anonymous lecture is possible.