6 Must Have Terms in Brand Deals
You got it! A brand sponsorship deal!
You're going to be creating content and getting paid to do it. And I'm going to walk you through six things to look for in a brand sponsorship deal.
Who owns the content?
First thing you want to look for in a Brand Sponsorship Agreement is who owns the content. You're going to be creating a lot of stuff here. Photos, videos, whatever, who owns it? This is important, because if you're working with a brand, and they expect that they own the content, they can use it however they want to. And maybe you don't want them to use your content after the campaign is over. Or maybe you don't want them to use it in a specific way, like on a website, or in connection with anything political, whatever it is.
Who can use the content - before, during, and after the campaign?
Again, maybe you want to be able to use an image that you captured during the campaign for some other purpose, whether it's on your website or on your feed, or something like that. Or maybe the brand wants to be able to use that content after the campaign is over. Maybe they want your face on their website. So this is an important thing to cover.
What are the specific expectations from the brand and what you're delivering?
Next is the expectations from the brand and specific expectations on what you're delivering, whether it's photo or video, what social channels you'd expect it to be posting this on, and the types of media on that social channel. So if we're talking about Instagram, for example, is it going to be a story, a reel, a feed post, all of the above? How many? All of that stuff really should be fleshed out in the agreement.
Do you need approvals and how do you get them?
If the brand wants approvals, who do you need to go to to get that approval ? You want to be able to get it done really quickly so you can go on and post and do what you need to do. What's that approval process like?
What happens if the relationship goes sideways?
Look for a morality clause. A morality clause will usually give the brand an out if you do something immoral, or speak about something in a way that they don't like. So look for that morality clause, but even more of what happens if somebody wants to terminate the relationship. Maybe it's the brand that you know, falls under the public eye and something goes wrong, something unethical happens, or or they fall into some heat. What happens if you want to terminate? What happens if they want to terminate? What happens if you've done some work up until that point, how will you get paid?
What words need to go in your caption or on your media for it to be legal and ethical?
That stuff might not be in the contract. It's probably up to you to know what the FTC rules are that you need to follow when you're posting sponsored content online. But in a nutshell, you want to clear and conspicuous disclosures on any sponsored content that tells your viewer that this is it.