The tide is turning in favor of creator pay, but is calling out brands for using allegedly plagiarized work actually helpful?

CEO Evan Morgenstein featured in NBC News article by Morgan Sung.

Designer Cecelia Monge found herself in a spat with Converse after she accused the shoe brand of using her designs, which she submitted in 2019, in its national park collection.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence, and it’s kind of just unfortunate when larger companies ‘borrow’ from smaller designers,” Monge said in May in a TikTok video, which amassed 22.8 million views. Converse denied the accusations in a comment on a post on Diet Prada’s Instagram account. 

Monge, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, and the shoe brand, which also didn’t respond to a request for comment, never partnered up.

But months later, in October, Monge was presented with a new opportunity: creating a collection of apparel using her original national park-inspired patterns in collaboration with the underwear brand Shinesty. The collection is nearly sold out.

While some creators may seek legal retribution for work they believe is stolen, few have the resources to go after well-known brands. Calling out brands online, however, is free. 

And that’s why many creators, like Monge, are increasingly using social media to call out brands that they say aren’t properly crediting and compensating them. 

Copyright laws regarding creative work aren’t always clear-cut, and people who post online risks their work’s being plagiarized and distributed without credit. Large companies have long had the upper hand in working with creators, especially those who have smaller platforms.

@ceci.monge

These are seriously so soft, if you like companies that support small designers, GO SHOP FROM THEM!! AVAIL FRIDAY #Shinesty #converse #design #fashion

♬ original sound – Ceci.monge

The tide is turning in favor of creator pay, but is calling out brands for using allegedly plagiarized work actually helpful?

It depends, said Evan Morgenstein, the CEO of the influencer talent agency The Digital Renegades, which manages partnerships between creators and brands.

Publicly shaming a brand may be tempting because consumers tend to trust other consumers more than they would a large company, Morgenstein said.

“Brand to consumer [marketing] is dead,” he said. “If you’re a brand, you can’t advertise to consumers anymore. It has to be consumer to consumer, which is why brands want to start in communities, and hopefully people in the communities talk the product up.” 

Public snark can pay off, sometimes

Public snark can sometimes end up leading to a productive partnership, one that benefits both brand and creator. 

One of the higher-profile instances occurred in 2020 with Epic Games, the parent company of the game Fortnite.

Epic Games ended up working closely with the actor Ana Coto, who went viral in early 2020 with a roller skating routine to the song “Jenny From the Block.” Coto had posted a side-by-side video of her original TikTok video from March 2020 with a clip of Fortnite’s nearly identical dance emote Freewheelin’, which was added to the game that summer.

“Flattered but no dance credit?” Coto captioned the TikTok video. 

A week later, Fortnite attributed the dance as having been “inspired by” Coto, who eventually worked with the game to create another skate-themed emote. 

Epic Games had been criticized in the past, and even sued, for using viral TikTok dances as in-game emotes without crediting the original creators who choreographed the dances. Although Epic Games last year began crediting emotes to creators, like “Renegade” choreographer Jaliaiah Harmon, other TikTok creators still accused Fortnite of using likenesses of their work without permission. 

Now, however, the company is reported to directly pay creators to use their viral dances, and it includes attribution on the emotes’ listings in the game’s online shop, Billboard reported last year.

Coto didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Epic Games, which declined to comment, referred to previous comments it has made to Billboard.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a choice we’re making to correct a past mistake,” Epic Games’ head of partnerships, Nate Nanzer, told Billboard in March of the move to paying creators. 

“When we were thinking about this program, honestly, it wasn’t even a question,” Nanzer said. “We were like, ‘Of course we need to compensate the creators.’ We wanted to make sure that we could tag them in the posts [and] work with these folks from a marketing perspective, as well, and make sure that we’re giving them proper credit.”

Some creators end up taking legal action

Some creators prefer to stir the pot when it comes to calling out brands.

Since it launched as an anonymous fashion account in 2014, the Instagram account Diet Prada, for example, has acted as an online whistleblower bringing attention to the injustices of the creative industry.

The account, which has 2.9 million followers, is known for shaming both luxury fashion brands and fast fashion chains for copying the work of lesser-known marginalized designers. 

Diet Prada’s approach to seeking digital justice has been criticized as bordering on sensationalist and in poor taste — the account known for canceling others was canceled for criticizing Kanye West’s Yeezy collaboration with the Gap with statements referring to his controversial political stances.

The post, which Diet Prada apologized for and deleted, failed to acknowledge Mowalola Ogunlesi, the Black female designer leading the collaboration. 

Diet Prada declined to comment for the story.

Lately, I have been thinking about how being a Talent Agent has evolved. This isn’t to say that there aren’t still some that practice what they have done for decades, still today. Contrary to popular belief, dinosaurs still live and exist. The talent representation business, which I started in by working with NBA players in roughly 1991, was at best a kiss-ass, follow everywhere, and “deal with the groupies” kind of deal. Yes, we had obligations to help negotiate deals and contracts, no question about it, but in that time, there really weren’t any competitors to athletes when it came to who was viewed as being the best spokespeople.

Truth be told, most of the big agencies told their A-List talent to do international commercial deals (such as Tom Cruise/Tag Heuer in Japan) vs. showing the American public a commercial side of who they were. It was so phony and inauthentic. But, that was the game being played in the 90s. I remember being at the Marina del Rey Ritz Carlton when the NY Knicks came to town to play the Lakers and the Clippers. I was working with a few of the athletes in marketing. I came to the hotel and there were 10+ women dressed for a party at 11am waiting for the athletes. (It always amazed me how these people really thought there was anything there for them emotionally, spiritually, etc.)

To be candid, part of why I got out of being a sports agent was the lack of loyalty from the athletes. There was little to no trust, and no shot that they were going to be with you for their entire careers. I have been to 6 Olympic Games, NBA All-Star Games, MLB playoff games, etc. I have seen a lot. I love sports and I love athletes, but I love it differently now. Now, my passion and focus is on the NIL athletes because they are real. They want your help to be their best, and they are so smart!

In February 2020, I had an epiphany about what was happening in the marketplace. I saw the pandemic exploding and realized on-site events were over. Life was going to be turning to virtual events. Virtual marketing. Virtual speaking conferences. Virtual sports. Everything and every brand needed to deliver their messaging via a virtual pathway. Consequently, the social media influencer market exploded. I was signing creators with 200-400,000 followers and in a year they were in the millions. 

Brands were coming out of the woodworks looking for influence and answers. How can they compete? How can they sell their products to a nervous marketplace? The social media influencer became the superstar of the world of celebrity. Stars will be stars, but for my money, social media influencers saved 50% of the companies that exist today in food, fitness, nutrition, beauty and more. With few people going to stores, online shopping became the hub of the marketplace. Uber Eats, Instacart, etc. took off. Who was driving the brand awareness? Social media influencers. 

As a Talent Agent, when all this was coming to fruition, I was servicing moms, retirees, chefs, fitness advocates, etc. Real people that had a skill. One of those skills was creating interesting and compelling content and sharing it on a social platform. I was in the business of building groups of creators that could collaborate together, share ideas and share insights on how to grow their audiences, sales, and income. It was a community like I have never been in before. 

The Digital Renegades and our sub-groups, The Food Renegades and The Sports Renegades, now had meaning. It wasn’t just representing talent that was there for themselves. Now, it was wildly successful and famous creators taking the time to help others grow and be successful. The social media influencer space is one of the hottest growth engines for entrepreneurism on the face of the earth. Most influencers and “micro” influencers are entrepreneurs. Most have no employees. One person shows! It’s remarkable.

I felt I could impact and help creators build their business. No longer was I just there to wipe the ass of sniveling rich athletes. Now, I am helping my clients build their forever. To wrap it up, like I said, I see an evolution for the Talent Agent for those who want to evolve. If you want to stand at the gate and wait for the rich athletes to maybe let you in the party, so be it. For me, I am spending time helping my clients be ground breaking creatives in a market-place full of great people with similar goals and dreams.

Instagram and TikTok are their hoping new features will help spur higher engagement for influencer and brand’s social media profiles

In 2013, social media platform Snapchat implemented the idea of disappearing stories, which has since become a very mainstream feature in the social media industry. Since then, industry giants such as Instagram have added a story feature to their platform, which allows users to post a story for their followers to see for 24 hours before it is no longer visible.

Instagram stories have become one of the more popular aspects of the site, however companies and influencers realized the potential these stories can have on raising brand awareness as well as directing traffic to a website. One of the most important features Instagram has allowed in stories has been swipe-up links, which allows users to share external links in the frames of their stories. Most recently, Instagram has announced that they are doing away with swipe up links and replacing them with a linked Sticker option. 

This transition from swipe-up links to a linked sticker provides several advantages for both influencers as well as companies who are looking to draw traffic to their own website. From an influencer standpoint, the sticker allows for much more creativity, as the sticker’s size, style and placement is now at the discretion of the user. Social media expert Matt Navarra believes that this will result in influencers being able to maximize the story’s impact through this added creative opportunity when drafting Instagram stories. 

Navarra also has expressed that the sticker provides further engagement in comparison to a swipe-link, as it allows story viewers to give slide-up reactions. Previously stories with a swipe-up link prevented story viewers from doing quick responses or reactions with the post. Now however with the link being in a sticker, viewers now have the ability to swipe-up with quick responses, furthering audience engagement for influencers. 

As of right now, the linked sticker option is only available for verified users or users with over 10,000 followers. The goal is to eventually allow all accounts to have access to this feature, however with concerns regarding users potentially using this feature to spread false information, Instagram has decided to gradually make this feature available for the general population of the app’s users. 

With stories being such a successful feature on platforms such as Snapchat and Instagram, the newest dominant social media platform TikTok has just announced their launch of a story feature as well. Similar to other platforms, this story feature allows influencers to share short clips/videos that will disappear 24 hours after being posted. TikTok has become arguably the best platform for social media marketing since it’s explosion of popularity in 2020, and they believe this new feature will help further fan engagement between influencers and their audience. As of right now, TikTok is currently testing stories outside of the United States, however look for this feature to become a large part of social media marketing in the US soon.

Wow, what an insane and completely unexpected implosion the pandemic has been in the world of social media influence. Prior to the pandemic, social media was part of the marketing mix for most brands, from start-ups to the top 5 brands in each industry. With the total collapse of the retail infrastructure as we knew it, and the majority of the population being quarantined in one way or another, direct to consumer (D2C) became everyone’s go to. And with this paradigm shift, so did the valuation of content creators and how they had massive influence over their followers.

This influence was created and executed in various manners from branding, whether that was by selling, sending followers to a website to gain educational information, and many other ways as well. But what was clear on zoom calls all over the country between clients and agencies was the urgency to improve upon their influencer and affiliate marketing machine. Most companies had minimal infrastructure and vision for how the pandemic was going to change everyone’s reality. Out of the murky bog came a lot of companies that created CRM based aggregators of influencers. Many had outdated information, fees and contact information, but even the ones that were selling quality data didn’t see the explosion of representation firms signing creators at a record pace. From your largest of representation firms like CAA and WME to United Talent and others to the boutique shops like The Digital Renegades and CEG. The race was on for talent, and everyone was in the pool!

This was a seminal point in the evolution of influencers gaining corporate acceptance as well as fair compensation. Previously only influencers such as the Kardashians and Jenners got paid a fair wage, but now creators with 100,000 followers and above can make a living or a healthy side hustle.  Agents brought legitimacy to the time, effort and creativity the creators brought to developing their content. Previously, brands saw athletes and celebrities as their big ticket spokespeople. But with the closing of arenas, movie theaters and production studios, the brands were forced to reassess how they viewed creators. Creators no longer were talked about like indentured servants, but instead were viewed as valuable assets in marketing and selling products.

Home delivery exploded: Instacart, Blue Apron, Thrive Market and so many others knocked on our doors. They wanted creators to be salespeople, and candidly it usually didn’t work. Not based on the fee that was being changed.  But here is what else we found out, brands offering creators codes to highlight and earn commissions was a fairytale! There is ZERO way to gauge true attribution from a creator. You can’t add it up in sales because most people (more than 80%) do not use codes, so the concept of “testing” an influencer was so flawed and the brands knew it. Just because a creator has millions of followers or even hundreds of thousands of followers, there is still no guarantee that in one post a large percentage of these consumers will buy. The notion of one call closing is so contradictory to where the actual market currently resides.

Consumers want proof, education, great prices and the feeling they aren’t being sold. Well, tell that to the agencies that are pumping out creator campaigns like puppy mills! It’s really depressing that agencies are making sure they get paid, and blaming creators for their lack of vision. Is this all agencies? Of course not, but a majority are burning and churning clients during the pandemic. They keep selling brands on their data collection and the discounted fees they can get on influencer fees. But what I tell everyone still is “you get what you pay for ” in this and every business.  

So the pandemic at worst was a forced education for everyone involved. Talent agents, influencers, brands, agencies, etc. We all had a good year to better understand what the circumstances are and how do we collectively navigate the landscape? Now with large numbers of Americans being vaccinated, what is next? How does this infrastructure morph into the next stage?

Let’s take a look at a few realities:

1. Social media usage will drop this Spring and Summer. Why? People are on the loose.   The increase in sales at places like Dick’s Sporting Goods shows that the consumer is feeling free to get out and explore. Outdoor experiences, AirBnB is seeing a massive rise in bookings, airlines are adding planes to their markets for the first time in years. All of this push to do things vs watch others do things will lead to a significant drop in viewership. This drop will just make dealing with creators that actually produce great engagement to be more expensive. Supply and demand folks! 
2. Brands will start pulling back experimental social media funds from social media campaigns to in store and on site activations. Sponsorships will take off.  Concerts, trade shows, etc.
3. Influencers will start to be utilized as a way to augment retail promotions and drive traffic in-store, not just to D2C channels.
4. Influencers will start to diversify their content as they too can get out of the house. So social media influencers, let’s say who previously focused on food, now will add new content such as travel, lifestyle and beauty content. 
5. New platforms will likely not have as much success as the meteoric rise of TikTok because of the pandemic.
6. Video content will now evolve to live streams. So platforms like YouTube and Twitch will benefit greatly.

The world of social media never stops changing because the consumer clamors for more and greater connection with those that they follow and idolize. The bar will be pushed to an even higher level. Brands need to be even more creative on how they gain attention by the consumer.   Education will always be a focal point for many brands but especially the emerging all-natural, organic and plant based lines of food. 

If you are an emerging brand or a historic one, let the experts at CelebExperts and The Digital Renegades help brainstorm your future.  Our collaborative DNA and desire to help you achieve your ultimate goals and beyond is our only objective. Contact us at evan@celebexperts.com or christina@celebexperts.com for an immediate free consultation.