Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MARCH 24, 2025 9 Politics & Policy Member FDIC At NBT Bank, our goal is to help you reach yours. Our relationship managers provide the expert guidance and custom solutions it takes to help grow your business. Our local commitment builds strong, long-lasting partnerships that maximize your potential for success. Fraud Protection & Secure Banking Solutions Local Perspective & Decision Making Capital and Treasury Management Solutions www.nbtbank.com/ct Maureen Kennedy, Dante Fazzina, Deb Oakliff, Steven Brandfield, Andreas Kapetanopoulos, Kate VanValkenburg, Heather Piteo, Dale Stewart, Steven Essex Let our experienced Connecticut commercial banking team create real opportunity for your business. DECD wants to sell CT-branded merchandise to help fund tourism industry Lawmakers recently heard testi- mony on a bill that would allow the state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) to sell Connecticut-branded merchan- dise, and use the proceeds to support the tourism industry. DECD Commissioner Daniel O'Keefe said House Bill 7165 would allow DECD to create a program to sell state-branded merchandise, as well as advertising space on CTvisit. com, the state's tourism website. Any revenue from that program would be deposited into the state tourism fund's statewide marketing account, he said. The proposal comes as the tourism industry is slated to lose millions of dollars in federal pandemic-era funding that has been used to promote the sector. "DECD hopes to follow in the footsteps of our sister agencies, the Department of Energy and Environ- mental Protection and Department of Agriculture in creating a sales program," O'Keefe said. "This will help tourism funding become more self-sustaining." David Krechevsky | HBJ Capitol Reporter Proposed bill would stop businesses from paying for 'reviews' The state legislature is consid- ering a bill that would impose limits on how businesses can compen- sate people who review their products and services. House Bill 5560 was introduced by the General Law Committee and sponsored by Rep. Josh Elliott (D-Hamden). Among other things, it would prohibit busi- nesses from providing compensa- tion or incentives to an individual in exchange for "writing a consumer review that expresses a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative, regarding the business, consumer good or consumer service that is the subject of the consumer review." Also, it would be a violation for a business to "write, give or sell a consumer review, consumer testimonial or celebrity testimo- nial that materially misrepresents, expressly or implicitly, the review- er's or testimonialist's experience with the business." The bill classifies such activi- ties as unfair trade practices. The proposed legislation comes as businesses are increasingly using social media influencers to help promote their products and services. The Federal Trade Commission already requires paid social media content to be labelled as "#spon- sored" or an "#ad." It's unclear what effect the proposed legislation would have on sponsored social media content. Stephanie Webster, founder of the restaurant review website and social media brand CT Bites, said: "As long as content is marked as 'sponsored,' or compensation is disclosed, we are making it clear to the public that the opinions may be biased. The issue really is when content creators, and this happens every day, … in fact, every hour, accept money or in-kind compen- sation without full disclosure." Webster believes it would be difficult to prohibit businesses from forming paid partnerships with social media influencers. BJ Kito, chief strategy officer at Cheshire-based marketing firm Rebellion Group, said he had concerns about the proposed bill, too. "HB 5560 could disrupt busi- nesses paying for sentiment-driven #sponsored content, even if tagged as such," Kito said. Drew Larson | HBJ Web Editor The state could sell advertising on its tourism website, CTvisit (shown above), to raise funding for the tourism industry. SCREENSHOT IMAGE

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