I run some product placement / brand awareness stuff with big YouTube gamers (also for gaming hardware, but not Microsoft), and I discussed this directly with ASA (Advertising Standards Authority in the UK) to ensure we weren't doing anything wrong.
We don't instruct our influences that they cannot be negative about our product not instruct them to be positive. We agree how often the products need to be shown, and include a few other things (link to product in description, etc.)
ASA's guidance was that for this we do not need to disclose anything about paying these influencers. I pointed out that although we don't specifically give them these instructions, the reality is that if one of them was negative we would kill the deal, and therefore were we essentially breaking the rules and just not putting it in writing - they said that no, we were fine until the first time we kill a deal because they said something negative. At that point on we have set a precedent and will need to have all our influencers disclose that they are being paid by us for these videos. But not until then.
Worth noting that our videos are fairly obvious - we generally have a 5 second logo clip that they play, the link in the description goes through what is obviously an adserver (though sometimes via bit.ly) - so we aren't trying hard to hide the fact. Although this was not relevant to ASA's answer to us.
Edit: Worth noting I work in Europe only, nothing in the US. Have also checked in Germany/France where we do the same thing, and there they don't seem to care right now, so no issues.
We don't instruct our influences that they cannot be negative about our product not instruct them to be positive. We agree how often the products need to be shown, and include a few other things (link to product in description, etc.)
ASA's guidance was that for this we do not need to disclose anything about paying these influencers. I pointed out that although we don't specifically give them these instructions, the reality is that if one of them was negative we would kill the deal, and therefore were we essentially breaking the rules and just not putting it in writing - they said that no, we were fine until the first time we kill a deal because they said something negative. At that point on we have set a precedent and will need to have all our influencers disclose that they are being paid by us for these videos. But not until then.
Worth noting that our videos are fairly obvious - we generally have a 5 second logo clip that they play, the link in the description goes through what is obviously an adserver (though sometimes via bit.ly) - so we aren't trying hard to hide the fact. Although this was not relevant to ASA's answer to us.
Edit: Worth noting I work in Europe only, nothing in the US. Have also checked in Germany/France where we do the same thing, and there they don't seem to care right now, so no issues.