Legal Considerations for Collaborations with Influencers
Collaborations and brand partnerships are a really fun and innovative way to increase the value and awareness of your brand. They can increase your revenue, and strengthen the existing reach you have. But at what cost?
When engaging in collaborations and partnerships, your brand protection must always come first. This includes: Strong Agreements and Intellectual Property Protection.
Set up your agreements right from the start to ensure that all collaborations are in good legal standing, and if you are sharing use of your brand assets or logo, make sure your Trademark is up to date.
The Importance of Choosing a Good Co-Partner
One of the most important considerations when forming a collaboration is choosing the correct co-partner. It may sound simple, but it is a vital part of the process. Sometimes dissolutions happen and are unavoidable, but you don’t want the end of a partnership to take down your whole brand with it. You may have a great relationship with your co-partner today, but in 5 or 10 years down the line, your visions may not align causing turmoil within your business. This can be cause for legal action, lawsuits, and much more depending on how the relationship dissolves.
Keeping your brand independence is vital to ensure your continued growth even in the event of an end of partnership on bad terms. To avoid legal issues, having a solid collaboration agreement to govern the business relationship is essential.
Influencer Collaborations
When collaborating with Influencers to spread brand awareness across social media channels, it’s important to have an Influencer Agreement in place. This type of marketing is an amazing tool and has become common practice to expand your brand reach. An Influencer Agreement will set out all expectations for the duration of the collaboration in a clear and understandable way, as well as the finer details like posting schedule, payment, and how long the posts must stay up for.
Your number one priority when handing over this agreement to your incoming Influencer is clarity. The Influencer must understand exactly what is expected of them, what the purpose for the content is, and you want them to reflect your brand in a way that is appropriate and honest.
Pro Tip: When selecting influencers to collaborate with, ensure you practice due diligence of the influencer in question. Do a deep dive into their internet presence, and past presence, to ensure no PR disasters are on the horizon of your brand.
Legalities of Influencer Marketing
Advertising in Canada is governed under the Competition Act enforced by the Competition Bureau. Luckily for us, in more recent years they have outlined market specific guidance for engaging in Influencer advertising practices. Under the Competition Act, your Influencers must disclose that they are promoting paid content with a material connection. What the Competition Act is defining is a “Material Connection”, which can include compensation, free product and services, and paid for trips.
We’re certain you’ve seen the “Paid Promotion”, “Sponsored Content” or “#ad” on your Instagram and TikTok feeds before, and there’s a legal reason why it’s there! We’ve probably all dreamed of getting invited on one of those paid branded vacations too!
Important Note!
It’s important to note that even if the product or services have been gifted to the influencer for FREE, they must disclose this information in compliance with the Competition Act. For your own sake, it’s important that your Influencer is aware of these legalities.
The disclosure of paid promotion or gifted product is also required by platforms like Instagram. Ensure that your Influencers are made aware of this stipulation and clearly have the material connection displayed.
If you’d like to learn more about the governance around Influencer Marketing and the Competition Act, you can find information on the Competition Bureau here.
Author Credits
Paige Bonner is a final year law student in the UK and a 2021 EFV Legal intern. She is specializing her studies towards intellectual property and trademark protection, and can always be found attending global trademark conferences. Connect with her on LinkedIn.
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