Advertising in HOF: what you may post under councils and CONAR

Promoting your own work is legitimate and necessary. In healthcare, however, advertising has its own rules, which exist to protect patients from promises that the treatment cannot keep. In orofacial harmonization (HOF), where the image is the center of the conversation, these rules weigh even more.

This article is not a summary of one specific resolution. Rules change, and an HOF professional may be subject to different councils. The goal is to gather the principles that repeat in practically every health advertising rule and show how to apply them day to day, including when using Harmy projections. The context is Brazil: the councils, codes and bodies mentioned are Brazilian.

Which rule applies to you?

The first question is: which professional council are you registered with? Professionals from different backgrounds perform facial aesthetic procedures, and each council has its own advertising and ethics rule:

Besides the council, all advertising is subject to the Consumer Protection Code, which prohibits misleading or abusive advertising, and to the Brazilian Advertising Self-Regulation Code, maintained by CONAR (Brazil's advertising self-regulation council).

Before publishing, read your council's current advertising resolution and the CONAR Code. This text does not replace that reading: it organizes general principles, and the final word always belongs to the rule in force. Rules on before and after photos, prices and social media use have changed more than once in recent years and are not the same across councils.

Which principles apply in any council?

With different wording, health advertising rules converge on a few principles. If your piece respects all of them, it has a good chance of being appropriate. If it breaks one, it probably is not.

Truthfulness

Everything said or shown must be true and verifiable. This applies to titles, specializations, equipment, products, years of experience and, above all, to images. A photo that is edited, filtered, lit differently or taken from a flattering angle in the after is not truthful, even if the procedure was performed.

Do not promise results

Each body's response to a procedure is individual. Expressions such as "guaranteed result", "painless", "risk-free", "look 10 years younger" or "the face of your dreams" promise what no professional can ensure. Prefer language such as "may", "tends to", "in general" and make clear that the indication depends on an assessment.

Do not induce or create need

Health advertising informs; it should not exploit insecurity about appearance, create artificial urgency ("today only", "last spots") or suggest that a person needs a procedure to be accepted. Demeaning comparisons about someone's body or face also fall here.

Avoid sensationalism

Sensationalism is presenting the procedure as extraordinary, revolutionary or miraculous, or promoting a technique without scientific backing as if it were established. Using shocking images or complications to attract attention also falls here.

Avoid improper self-promotion

Improper self-promotion is using communication to place yourself above colleagues by means the rule does not allow: calling yourself "the best", citing the number of patients treated as an argument for quality, offering gifts or procedure giveaways, or advertising a title you do not hold. Each council defines what it considers improper, which is why reading the rule is essential.

Respect the patient's image and privacy

A patient's face appears in advertising only with specific written authorization, revocable at any time and separate from consent for the procedure. The image is also sensitive personal data in the clinical context, protected by the LGPD (Brazil's data protection law). See the article on consent and LGPD for patient photos.

What about before and after?

The before and after is the most delicate point in HOF advertising. How it is handled varies between councils and has changed over time: some rules prohibit it, some allow it under conditions and some require an educational context. Check yours.

When your rule allows it, the most common conditions are:

• express authorization from the patient for that use;
• faithful, unedited photos, with the same light, the same angle and the same distance (see standardized clinical photography);
• clear identification of what was done, without omitting the number of sessions or associated procedures;
• no promise that the reader will get the same result;
• content that is informative, not just commercial.

Can I share the Harmy projection?

The Harmy projection must not be shared as a result. It is an illustrative simulation, not a promise of results, generated by artificial intelligence from the patient's photo, to support the conversation between you and the patient in the practice. No procedure was performed in that image.

Publishing a projection as if it were a real before and after violates both the principle of truthfulness and the ban on promising results. It also exposes the patient's face without the patient having undergone the treatment shown.

Appropriate uses of the projection:

• showing the patient, during the visit, the direction of the plan and the expected effect of each marked area;
• sending the patient the app's share image, which already comes with the simulation notice;
• recording in History what was planned and, later, comparing Projection vs Actual with the result photo.

Uses to avoid:

• posting the projection on social media as a before and after;
• using the projection in an ad, even with a small "simulation" caption;
• cropping the share image to remove the simulation notice;
• showing one patient's projection to another patient.

If you want to say on social media that you offer planning with simulation, prefer talking about the process (assessment, planning, a conversation about expectations) with images that are not of real patients or that make unmistakably clear that they are illustrations. Even so, check what your council's rule says about the use of simulations and digital tools in advertising.

Checklist before posting

Use this list as a final filter. A "no" answer is a reason to revise the piece.

Examples of language

Hypothetical examples for comparison, not templates approved by any council:

Who enforces this and what can happen?

Regional councils investigate ethical violations, including advertising ones, and can open an ethics and disciplinary proceeding. CONAR reviews complaints about ads and can recommend changing or suspending pieces. Misleading or abusive advertising can also create liability under the Consumer Protection Code. In addition, improper exposure of a patient's image can lead to a claim for damages.

The safest path is simple: inform more than you sell, show only what is real and authorized, and keep planning with simulation inside the practice, where it does its job. To understand the care that gives rise to these images, also see the overview of treatment areas and the term informed consent.