Most firms approach video as a production question: equipment, lighting, editing, who looks comfortable on camera. Regulators approach it as a communications question, and they ask almost nothing about how it was made. What they ask is what was said, who decided to say it, and whether you can show that a year from now.

This guide has two parts. First, what the two main rulebooks say about advisor video, quoted from the rules as they stood on October 6, 2026. Then the checklist: the questions that decide almost every advisor video issue, in the order a compliance officer tends to ask them.

What FINRA Rule 2210 and the SEC Marketing Rule say about video

Neither rulebook treats video as its own category. A recorded video is a communication, and it is judged by what it says, who it reaches and what record the firm kept. Which rulebook applies depends on how you are registered.

Broker-dealers: FINRA Rule 2210

Rule 2210 sorts communications by audience. A retail communication is "any written (including electronic) communication that is distributed or made available to more than 25 retail investors within any 30 calendar-day period." Video sits inside that frame: the rule's filing section refers to a "television or video retail communication."

  • Approval. "An appropriately qualified registered principal of the member must approve each retail communication before the earlier of its use or filing" with FINRA.
  • The exception that matters most for video. Pre-use approval does not apply to a retail communication that "does not make any financial or investment recommendation or otherwise promote a product or service of the member," as long as the firm supervises and reviews it the way it does correspondence. FINRA's Rule 2210 FAQ applies this to video by name. Asked whether a principal must approve "a video posted online that does not recommend or promote a product or service of the firm," FINRA answers no, "provided that the firm supervises and reviews such videos in the same manner as correspondence." That answer was posted September 30, 2021.
  • Content. Every communication must be "fair and balanced" and must "provide a sound basis for evaluating the facts in regard to any particular security or type of security, industry, or service."
  • Records. Firms keep "a copy of the communication and the dates of first and (if applicable) last use of such communication" and "the name of any registered principal who approved the communication and the date that approval was given." For how long, the rule points to SEA Rule 17a-4(b), which says "not less than three years, the first two years in an easily accessible place."

Investment advisers: the SEC Marketing Rule

Rule 206(4)-1 covers advertisements. The definition begins with "Any direct or indirect communication an investment adviser makes to more than one person" that offers the adviser's advisory services, and it leaves out "Extemporaneous, live, oral communications." Going by the SEC's own explanation, a recorded, scripted video does not fit that exception. In the release adopting the rule, the SEC wrote that "previously recorded oral communications disseminated by the adviser would not qualify as live" and that "Extemporaneous communications do not include prepared remarks or speeches, such as those delivered from scripts."

  • Approval. The rule has no pre-use sign-off. The same release says "the final rule will not require investment advisers to review and approve their advertisements prior to dissemination." A separate rule, 206(4)-7, requires advisers to "Adopt and implement written policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent violation" of the Advisers Act and its rules, which is where your firm's review process gets written down.
  • Content. An advertisement may not include "any untrue statement of a material fact," or a material statement of fact that the adviser lacks "a reasonable basis for believing it will be able to substantiate upon demand by the Commission," or a discussion of potential benefits "without providing fair and balanced treatment of any material risks or material limitations associated with the potential benefits."
  • Other voices. Testimonials and endorsements come with required disclosures, and the rule requires the core ones to be made "Clearly and prominently." In a risk alert dated December 16, 2025, SEC examination staff said they "observed advisers that used hyperlinked disclosures rather than including the required clear and prominent disclosures within the testimonial or endorsement," along with disclosures "in a smaller or lighter font than the testimonials or endorsements to which they were related." We read that as a reason to put a disclosure in the video itself, at a size people can read. Your compliance team decides.
  • Records. Rule 204-2 lists a copy of each advertisement the adviser disseminates among the records to keep, with limited exceptions, "for a period of not less than five years" counted from the end of the fiscal year in which it was last published or disseminated.

A dually registered firm answers to both. Whether a given video is a retail communication, correspondence or an advertisement is your firm's call, and so is everything that follows from it.

What the two rulebooks share: what a firm can show later is a document. A script, a date, a retained copy and, where one is required, an approval. None of those comes from a camera. For how retention periods can differ inside one firm, see point 8 of our video tool checklist.

Proposed, not final: FINRA Regulatory Notice 26-14

On July 9, 2026, FINRA published Regulatory Notice 26-14, a request for comment on changes to Rule 2210. The proposal "would replace the prescriptive principal pre-use approval requirement with more modernized, risk-based standards for supervising retail communications." Under it, "members would be required to establish written procedures appropriate to their business, size and structure to determine what categories of retail communications require principal pre-use approval." The comment period closed on September 11, 2026.

It is a proposal. As of October 6, 2026, Rule 2210 as quoted above is the rule that applies. If you are reading this later, check FINRA's page for the notice before relying on either version.

The one idea behind the checklist

A video built from an approved script is reviewed marketing that happens to have a face on it. A video made up as it's recorded is a communication nobody reviewed, and no amount of production quality changes which one you have.

Why "just a quick unscripted video" is the problem

Advisors often describe the videos they want to make in a phrase that sounds harmless. Taken one word at a time, it's where the trouble is.

  • "Just." Informality doesn't change what category the material falls into. A phone video and a studio production are the same kind of thing to a reviewer.
  • "Quick." Length and turnaround are workflow details. They don't decide what review the piece needs.
  • "Unscripted." This is the word that costs money. Unscripted means the claims were decided in the moment, which means they were never reviewed and can't easily be reconstructed.

The words are where most of the review happens. If they exist as a document before the camera runs, review is easy, edits are free and the record is already made. If they don't, the only thing left to review is a finished file, where the options are approve it, kill it or shoot it again.

The checklist: four questions that decide almost everything

1. Which rulebook applies to you?

A registered investment adviser and a broker-dealer are held to different requirements for the same sixty seconds of footage, and a dually registered firm answers to both. Settle this first. It decides whether pre-use approval is a policy you chose or a requirement you inherit, and who has to sign.

2. Does anything in it look like a result?

A number, a chart, a range, a line like "our clients came through last year fine," a screenshot of a portfolio. Once a video implies performance, more requirements come into play. Many firms make their video program workable simply by deciding that videos never carry performance.

3. Does anyone other than you speak?

A client, a friendly CPA, a co-host or a guest. Praise from a third party is treated differently from a statement about yourself, and it raises questions about disclosure and whether anything of value changed hands, including things people don't think of as payment, like referrals or exposure.

4. Who sees it, and can you produce it later?

Where a video goes often matters as much as what's in it: a private client link, an open social feed, a paid boost, a newsletter. And if someone asks next year for the video, the script it came from and proof of who approved it, can you hand over all three? If the answer depends on someone's memory, you don't have a record.

Building a video program that has to pass review? Book a demo and see how Cue handles these four questions.

Where firms actually get caught

Usually not in the video itself, but in the things around it that nobody was assigned to.

  • The comment section. You controlled the sixty seconds. You didn't control what someone wrote underneath, or what your account liked, pinned or replied to.
  • Version drift. The script was approved, then edited on the way to the shoot, then trimmed in the edit. The file that went out isn't the file that was cleared.
  • The helpful guest. Nobody was paid, so nobody thought about it. The relationship or referral flow is exactly what needed saying.
  • The clip cut from the clip. A short vertical version made from an approval that covered the long one. The context that carried the qualification is the first thing an edit removes.

What to bring to your compliance team

Bring these six things to the first conversation, and it becomes a workflow discussion instead of a debate about whether video is allowed.

  1. The script, as a document, before anything is filmed. Not a topic or an outline. The words.
  2. A written answer to "who approves, and where is that recorded?"
  3. The list of places it will be posted, including cut-down versions and anywhere it will be boosted or paid for.
  4. A decision about comments: off, monitored, or open with a stated policy. Any of the three can work. Having no answer doesn't.
  5. Whether anyone other than the advisor appears or speaks, and on what terms. Ask before filming, not in the edit.
  6. Where the finished file and its approved script will live, and who can retrieve them. Ask your compliance team how long you need to keep them.

What to ask any video platform

Including ours. These questions separate tools designed for supervised firms from tools that added a compliance page later.

  • Can compliance see and edit the script before recording?
  • Is approval a step the workflow enforces, or a habit people are trusted to keep?
  • When approved wording changes, does it become a new version, or overwrite the old one?
  • Can disclosures and branding be set once, centrally, and inherited by every advisor?
  • Can material be withdrawn, and does access actually stop?
  • Can you get the finished file and the approved script for any video when someone asks for them?
  • Where is footage stored, for how long, and can you get it out if you leave?

You can see how Cue answers these on our security page.

Want to walk through the list with us? Book a demo and bring your compliance lead.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Requirements differ by registration status, state, products and your firm's own written policies, and they change. Nothing here replaces your compliance team, your counsel or the current text of the rules that apply to you, and no vendor, including Cue Studio, can take on your obligations for you.

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