Endorsement in general
Endorsement has to do with the commercial promotion of a brand or a product or a service by means of a well-known public figure or a celebrity. Latter person is called a brand ambassador. Typical examples of brand ambassadors are:
- actors;
- media celebrities;
- sport personalities;
- music artists;
- models;
- dj’s;
- athletics;
- public figures well known; and
- virtual creatures.
Benefits of endorsement
In most cases endorsement is beneficial for both the represented brand and the brand ambassador. If you are a well-known public figure or celebrity, endorsing a brand, product or service can be an effective way of commercially exploiting your fame and raising your public profile. For brands, endorsement is an extremely effective marketing tool which, if implemented correctly, can generate significant sales revenues and brand awareness.
The benefits for the brand ambassador, which in most cases is an individual or a virtual creature, for endorsing a brand product or service are:
- commercially exploiting of their fame as a public figure or celebrity; and
- improvement of a raising public profile.
The benefits of endorsement as an effective commercial marketing tool for the represented brand, in most cases a company, are:
- creation of higher sales revenues; and
- creation of more brand awareness.
Protection of endorsement rights
The right of publicity, often called personality rights, is the right of an individual to control the commercial use of his or her name, image, likeness or other unequivocal aspects of one’s identity. It is generally considered a property right as apposed to a personal right. As such the validity of the right of publicity can survive the death of the individual to various degrees depending on the jurisdiction.
Personality rights are generally considered to consist of two types of rights. On the once side the right of publicity, or to keep one’s image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission or contractual compensation, which is similar to the use of a Trademark. On the other side the right of privacy or the right to be left alone and not to have one’s personality represented publicly without permission.
Consequently it is generally accepted that every individual should have a right to control how if at all his or her persona is commercialized by third parties. Tools to control the personality rights – including image rights – by famous or publicly know individuals are:
- registration of image rights for protection purposes
- commercial exploitation of image rights by means of endorsement agreements and merchandise agreements.
- setting up of licensing companies to achieve asset protection and tax neutral exploitation of the image rights
Endorsement and merchandising agreements
By means of an endorsement agreement it is achieved that the endorsement rights of an individual are licensed to a brand owner to use the individuals endorsement in relation to the promotion of the brand by any suitable media.
The endorsement of an individual for commercial exploitation consists, among others, of the individual his or her trade marks, name, nickname initials, autograph, voice, facsimile, signature, photograph, statements, likeness, caricature, computer generated image, motion picture, videotapes or any other endorsement or image whatsoever associated with the individual.
In case of merchandising agreements the use of the endorsement is limited to the use on merchandise such as clothing, footwear and caps.
Endorsement and merchandising agreements should be drafted carefully taking into account regulatory and commercial considerations such as the use of the image right on traditional advertising platforms or new social media platforms and the jurisdictions were to actively use. These considerations will determine how a company can use the celebrity or public known individual as a “brand ambassador” to promote its brands of several products and or services. For entering into an endorsement or a merchandising agreement it is of importance to determine that the image rights are protectable under copyright, trademark or other applicable laws. Even more advantageous to register these rights and to include the registration numbers in the contract.
We provide services for the drafting, adjusting and negotiations of endorsement and merchandising agreements for brand ambassadors as well as brand owners.
Specific endorsement markets
We are specialized, however not limited in the following endorsement markets:
Please contact us to apply for our services.
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