<\/p>\n
Johanna Voss wants to know why redlining is a problem.<\/p>\n
Voss, a talent manager, regularly negotiates with brands and agencies on behalf of her influencer clients. In doing so, she\u2019s become accustomed to redlining, or striking out, certain clauses in contracts, often in the terms and conditions section, or the \u201cfine print,\u201d where she says she generally advocates for more creator protections. According to Voss, it\u2019s crucial for talent managers to be able to redline the terms and conditions, and she has often redlined contracts to reflect discussions that were part of the negotiation process she went through with the brand or agency involved.<\/p>\n
But what was once a regular course of business is now getting pushback. Instead of being able to redline contracts like usual, Voss said she has recently been sent contracts to review after negotiations, with language that Voss can\u2019t redline.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe brand gets everything,\u201d Voss told Marketing Brew. \u201cThere\u2019s zero protection of the creator. I\u2019ve had about four or five [deals] come over in the past couple of weeks where they send the agreement, they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, FYI, we can\u2019t redline terms and conditions.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Voss isn\u2019t alone. In the last 18 months or so, Molly Tracy, CEO and founder of talent management shop Vrai, told us she\u2019s gotten \u201ca lot more pushback\u201d on editing the terms and conditions of a contract, often being told that her agency can only edit the scope of work.<\/p>\n
Terms and conditions are \u201cwhere all this stuff is that needs to have the biggest edits,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s where your indemnifications are. That\u2019s where most of your termination [agreement is], all of your usage clauses\u2014all of that is in the Ts and Cs. That\u2019s the part that we need to edit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rise in agencies and brands limiting redlining comes as the creator economy continues to surge and as influencer marketing deals become more commonplace. Some marketing experts say that limiting redlining could be a simple efficiency play as investment grows and as marketers have more contracts to work through. But talent managers told us it\u2019s causing friction in the negotiation process, all while putting them in a difficult position.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s starting to become really problematic,\u201d Samantha Hicks, managing director at Shine Talent Group, said. \u201cWe will agree to specific terms\u2026and then we get the contract, and it\u2019s completely different from what we\u2019ve agreed to, and they won\u2019t accept redlines. That obviously puts us in a tough spot because we can\u2019t accept that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Major brands are doubling down on the creator economy\u2014or, in the case of Unilever, planning to hire 20 times more influencers. Overall spending on influencer marketing in the US is expected to reach $10 billion this year, according to eMarketer, and according to a recent survey from the World Federation of Advertisers, 54% of brand marketers said they plan to increase their influencer spend this year.<\/p>\n
As marketers continue to scale their investment in influencer marketing, there are more contracts to negotiate, and to limit costs, it could make sense to adopt a no-redlining policy, at least in some cases, said Vickie Segar, founder of influencer marketing shop Village Marketing.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe have clients where we\u2019re spending $20 million, $30 million a quarter in the influencer space\u2014and we\u2019re not paying any influencer individually, on average, more than $25,000,\u201d Segar told us. \u201cWhen you do the math on that, we\u2019re doing hundreds of thousands of agreements, invoices, you name it. What doesn\u2019t make sense is when you\u2019re paying a creator $1,000 and you have a back-and-forth legal contract where you\u2019re spending five hours of legal money on redlines. There is a proportionate structure that needs to happen with deals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marketers haven\u2019t always found the ideal process to manage the volume. \u201cWhen you\u2019re working at scale, the legal hours can really rack up,\u201d Mae Karwowski, founder of influencer marketing shop Obviously said (although she noted that her shop still allows for redlines). \u201cMaybe it\u2019s a cost-savings measure on the part of some of these brands, or they’re just saying, \u2018Hey, there are enough creators\u2014we know we\u2019ll get someone to actually sign this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It could come down to cost savings alone or perhaps a broader effort at making the process of working with many creators more time-efficient, Jonathan Daly, head of communications strategy for creative agency Johannes Leonardo, said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re trying to build out a program that has 50 or 100 influencers\u2026there\u2019s probably an impetus to make that as efficient as possible,\u201d Daly said. \u201cSo it\u2019s one standard contract [that] I\u2019m gonna send this out to 200 creators. Hopefully we get enough back, and it\u2019s like, \u2018Take it or leave it. These are the terms. This is what we want.\u2019 It\u2019s just about moving at pace.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as marketers manage potential growing pains, talent managers aren\u2019t all sold on the argument and told us that they won\u2019t accept terms or conditions that could put clients in a precarious position.<\/p>\n
To manage the pushback on redlining, some talent managers say they are asking agencies and brands for a master service agreement that supersedes the terms and conditions that they\u2019ve been told they\u2019re no longer able to augment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen a little bit more this year of a willingness to come up with a master service agreement for agencies that we work with quite often,\u201d Tracy said. \u201cWe know that we cannot edit these terms and conditions on every single contract, but can we come to a conclusion on terms and conditions that we find equitable for both of us that we can then use as an MSA, or a master service agreement, across the board for all of our campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hicks has taken a similar approach, offering master service agreements for her clients at Shine. \u201cWe do this one time and we agree on the general terms and conditions,\u201d Hicks said. \u201cWe call that final. Then we have a scope of work that can be modified, talent to talent, based on what the deliverables are, but then we\u2019re not spending days going back and forth redlining the terms and conditions. I think it is a fair compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, it\u2019s not a fix that will necessarily work across the board. \u201cThat only really works if you\u2019re working with that agency a lot,\u201d Tracy said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n