Advertise and apply for an advertising license in Vietnam

Advertising is the employment of various means in order to present the public with the profitable products, goods and service; non-profitable products and services; organizations and individuals trading and providing the presented products, goods and services, except for news, social policies; personal information.

(According to Clause 1, Article 2, Law on Advertising 2012)

Advertising is a very important means in conveying, creating trust and persuasion to the public. Currently, many people use advertising for the wrong purpose, to the wrong person and use false information, especially for advertising food, cosmetics, pharmaceutical, … which directly affects human body and health. Therefore, Vietnam’s law has imposed regulations on advertising and strictly controlled advertisement’s content in the process of applying for advertising content licenses.

1. What does the advertising content license mean?

Registration for confirming advertising content is a mandatory procedure for organizations and individuals before conducting an advertising activity before widely introducing and disseminating products to the public. Applying for an advertising license is so important as:

• In order for the state agencies to manage and strictly control the advertising content during the registration of advertising content, to avoid the case of advertising the wrong content and easily causing confusion with the product

• Enterprises with advertising licenses will ensure advertising content in accordance with regulations, avoid the risk of administrative sanctions with very large fines and create trust and persuasion to the public.

2. Who needs permission?

Organizations and individuals doing business and intending to carry out advertising activities of all kinds of products and goods subject to permission, such as drugs (pharmaceuticals), cosmetics, food, chemicals, pesticides, medical equipment, ect relating to and directly affecting human health and body, are required to apply for advertising licenses.

For example, Vietnam’s law requires organizations and individuals to register content before advertising:

• Dietary supplements, medical foods, food for special dietary uses.

• Dietary products for children up to 36 months.

(According to Article 26, Decree No. 15/2018/ND-CP)

• Mixed food additives with new uses, food additives that are not on the list of permitted food additives compiled by the Ministry of Health (hereinafter referred to as “unregistered food additives”).

(According to Article 21, Circular No. 06/2011/TT-BYT)

3. Procedures and fee for establishing a license?

Currently, most of businesses do not have enough knowledge and experience in carrying out the procedures for applying for advertising content licences. The best solution for businesses to carry out this procedure as soon as possible and most effectively is finding a law firm with many years of experience in this field to be advised, guided and supported in the process of applying for advertisement content, for example:

• Discussing and consulting with the Enterprise about initial information to carry out the registration procedure for advertising content licenses;

• Reviewing documents that Enterprise has provided before conducting services;

• Consulting with state agencies to advise and discuss documents (if any);

• Drafting, checking, modifying and completing necessary documents as prescribed;

• Supporting and representing the Enterprise to submit documents, following the settlement of documents at Authority agencies and additional explanations related to records (if any);

• Get the result and hand over licenses to Businesses.

Depending on the advertising license for each specific type of product, goods or service, the state agency will have different regulations on the license fee.

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[LTT & LAWYERS:] The article was published for the purpose of educating, disseminating and propagating laws and guidelines and policies of the State for non-commercial purposes. The information above is for reference only and some legal information may have expired, so please consult with professional lawyers or experts before applying those information in practice.

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