Influencer Marketing To Promote Your Business
Key Contact: Declan Goodwin
Author: Rachel McCulloch
This summer’s Love Island has come to an end and now the winners, and other contestants, will become highly sought after by businesses wanting to partner with them to promote their products or services. But what do you need to think about when using influencer marketing in your business?
Manage the Risks
First and foremost, before entering into any agreement with an influencer, you should undertake due diligence to ensure the influencer’s history does not reflect badly on your business. It is worth checking whether the influencer holds the same values as your business.
At Acuity we offer Acuity Reputation Management to help ensure your business’ reputation is protected. Even if the influencer does not pose any obvious risk, you should have plans in place so you can react promptly should a situation arise.
Written Agreement
Putting a written agreement in place is essential to ensure the terms of the agreement between you and the influencer are documented. You should ensure that the agreement includes:
- the length of the relationship;
- the services required, the content they will produce and how much creative freedom the influencer will have;
- the extent of the rights you will have over the content they create;
- rights for you to terminate the agreement if you are unhappy with the relationship;
- what should happen if the influencer is non-compliant with the terms; and
- how are you going to pay them (e.g. money or free products/services).
Copyright and Intellectual Property Ownership
Under copyright law, copyright arises automatically as soon as certain types of original work are created. Ideally, you will want to ensure the copyright of anything produced by the influencer is assigned to your business so you have full control over its use. Alternatively, you could take a licence over the content, but this will need to be wide enough to provide you with the freedom you need to use the content now, as well as in the future. In a licence scenario, you will also need the ability to be able to require the influencer (and any other licensee) to stop using the content or to stop its association with your business.
You will also need a licence under the agreement to use the influencer’s name and images for the purposes of advertising your goods/services. You should think about whether you want to include the right to edit the content, for example, to dub it into a foreign language.
Advertising Law and Regulation
There are multiple laws and regulations that apply to influencer marketing, including the CAP Code, which can be found here. You will want to ensure the influencer does not make claims or omissions that breach the regulations, and where influencers are paid, promotional posts should be marked as an advertisement (for example, many social medial posts include the infamous hashtag “#ad”).
When considering the CAP Code, it is worth remembering that payment doesn’t just apply to monetary compensation, but also includes freebies the influencers receive from you.
Contact us for assistance
These are just a few of the essential things you should think about when engaging in influencer marketing. We can assist you to consider what else you should be including, and by drafting an agreement for you to use with social media influencers or brand ambassadors. For further information or advice, please get in touch with our Commercial and Technology Team.
