The Rising Need for Rights Management for Advertisers
FADEL and Merck recently presented at the ANA Production Management Committee Meeting on the importance of talent and content rights management in the Advertising space and stressed on the rising needs of Rights Management for Advertisers. ANA members can visit the Marketing Knowledge Center to access the presentation. A brief recap is below.
Over the years, FADEL customers in Publishing and Consumer Products have relied on Rights Management to manage their intellectual property. For example, if a music company is launching a new video, it needs to understand and manage the rights of its talent, the rights behind the video, and the audio rights. If a company is publishing a book, it needs to pay rights for authors and illustrators. Nowadays, with all the technological innovations, content is becoming more complex and deciphering the rights for what lies within the final content is a challenge. FADEL touched upon the big transformation of content use nowadays and how the new digital distribution models are rapidly spreading.
For example, the number of internet devices went from 1000 to 10,000,000 in only 30 years (1984 to 2014)1. By 2019, wearable electronics will be an $18 billion industry2. Content Delivery Networks are growing very fast due to rapid explosion of streaming media, online transactions, web content – from $6.05 billion in 2016 to $30.89 billion by 2022 (32.8% market growth rate)3. Companies like Disney have launched digital products like app-based story books, mobile learning apps (Imagicademy), (Playmation) toys that come to life via wireless systems and motion sensors and even wearable technology according to The Licensing Letter (TLL).
These transformations impact the advertising world as well. Brand Ambassadors are tasked with promoting a positive brand image, not compromising brand equity—and definitely not putting a brand at risk with a lawsuit. As content proliferates and new channels emerge, there are increasing limitations on how you can use, where you can use and when you can use content. With greater complexity, less control and financial pressure how do advertisers continue to deliver innovative quality work in an ever-changing business climate? FADEL and Merck addressed those challenges that advertisers should overcome, such as complex and multidimensional licensing terms, the structural gap between legal & creative, the information gap between contracts & assets, and the increasing need to repurpose digital assets. Without a solution in place, production teams are potentially faced with tracking down rights, sorting through PDF contracts and interpreting legal information – or taking chances that put the brand and company at risk.
Some of the best practices discussed in the presentation were to centralize and make available rights information, introduce data and process governance, and shift from manual to automated rights clearance. By centralizing the information, advertisers can spot the type of content that is rights managed and can better understand where the contracts are coming from. Also, it allows Business Affairs to quickly “prove” rights and enables the teams to amend and extend on contracts rather than start from scratch. By having easy access to contracts and information, brands can minimize the risk of litigation and avoid bad headlines in the news. By having the rights governance process, the advertiser can ensure that the agencies they work with are following the same set of steps to do rights checks and properly share information. Rights workflow will be smoother with all the triggers, alerts, and notifications. As for having an automated platform versus a manual one, production teams can easily and quickly track against multiple rights holders for one asset and can avoid production delays in case of a misuse of an image. Both FADEL and Merck stressed that having visibility and control over content rights is key when managing an advertising campaign and addressing industry challenges around compliance, production delays, unexpected costs, and a lack of transparency.
If you are an ANA member, visit the Marketing Knowledge Center to access the presentation.
Resources:
1 Research by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, Jeff Brenman – Did You Know? Shift Happens, 2014 remix – https://safeshare.tv/x/ntjwDrwEwh
2 Research by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, Jeff Brenman – Did You Know? Shift Happens, 2014 remix – https://safeshare.tv/x/ntjwDrwEwh
3 MarketsandMarkets – Content Delivery Network Market Global Forecast to 2022 – December 2017 – https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/content-delivery-networks-cdn-market-657.html
