Latest / Influencer Confidential / Creator Contract Red Flags You NEED to Know Before Signing #310

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Creator Contract Red Flags You NEED to Know Before Signing #310 · Influencer Confidential

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Influencer Confidential by Sidewalker Daily. My name is
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  Speaker 1: Nina Zeta and I will be your host. I love
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  Speaker 1: working with brands and influencers on all things business strategy.
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  Speaker 1: Are you ready to learn what it takes to work
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  Speaker 1: in this influencer industry and see behind the curtain? Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's jump in. So many of you have heard about
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  Speaker 1: the passing of the actress Hayden Panettiere. And while the
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  Speaker 1: story is so very sad, this is not a video
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  Speaker 1: about that. May she rest in peace. This is a
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  Speaker 1: video really about clauses and contracts because you may or
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  Speaker 1: may not have heard the controversy of what happened with Hayden. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: she was very public about her postpartum depression and she
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  Speaker 1: was a Neutrogena brand ambassador for over 10 years. And supposedly,
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  Speaker 1: based on an interview she did with Jay Shetty, she
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  Speaker 1: went on record and said that that is the reason
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  Speaker 1: she thought that they canceled her contract. And in this
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  Speaker 1: episode with Jay Shetty, she talks about morality clauses. So
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  Speaker 1: let's actually go ahead and see what she says and
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  Speaker 1: break this down and why this matters to you as
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  Speaker 1: a creator. Because guess what? I know you want those
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  Speaker 1: long-term brain deals and I know you want that Neutrogena money,
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  Speaker 1: but let's dissect and understand this.
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  Speaker 2: Neutrogena, I was with for 10 years and- I mean,
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  Speaker 2: they have morals clauses, which had a huge impact in
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  Speaker 2: my life because I was a teenager and I had
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  Speaker 2: all the paparazzi around me catching all of these gory moments.
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  Speaker 2: Like every moment, every cigarette that I smoked or bad
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  Speaker 2: outfit or, oh, she's looking chunky in a bathing suit.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, she has.
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  Speaker 2: a fat vagina. I mean, I went through, through all
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  Speaker 2: of that, you know, they were there for, for everything.
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  Speaker 2: Neutrogena was a huge part of my, of my life.
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  Speaker 2: I had the morals classes. They caught absolutely everything. And
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  Speaker 2: of all the things to that, they would fire me over.
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  Speaker 2: This was the last thing that I thought they would
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  Speaker 2: ever fire me over. And when I actually went out
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  Speaker 2: on to stage on, It was live with Kelly and Michael.
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  Speaker 2: I had no intention of or plan to talk about
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  Speaker 2: postpartum depression. It just came up and I was just
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  Speaker 2: being honest and never for a second did I think
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  Speaker 2: that anyone or cared that anyone would have a bad
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  Speaker 2: reaction to it. It was my truth. So when I
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  Speaker 2: got that call that.
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  Speaker 2: Neutrogena wanted to fire me over that. And my representative
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  Speaker 2: at the time said, that's illegal. You can't do that.
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  Speaker 2: And even though, you know, she saved the day that year,
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  Speaker 2: I knew that that was going to be it, that
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  Speaker 2: there was going to be, I was not going to
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  Speaker 2: be invited back the next year. And I had worked
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  Speaker 2: with these people for 10 years. And I remember not
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  Speaker 2: hearing a word from anybody.
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  Speaker 1: I think you guys get the drift here. So It's
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  Speaker 1: a lot, right? It's a lot. Let's talk about it.
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  Speaker 1: She talks about moral clauses inside of contracts. Influencers are
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  Speaker 1: seeing these as well. You're doing a year ambassadorship with
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  Speaker 1: a company. And like she mentions, everything is being recorded now, right?
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  Speaker 1: How you act online, how you participate. Did you make
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  Speaker 1: a political comment? Did you say something that goes against
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  Speaker 1: the brand? Hayden, she is saying that the reason her
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  Speaker 1: 10-year contract ended was because she went vocal on a
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  Speaker 1: topic that Neutrogena did not want her to touch. The
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  Speaker 1: reason I want to have this conversation with creators is
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  Speaker 1: because I don't think you guys are looking at these clauses.
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  Speaker 1: I think you're looking at the deliverables and you're looking
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  Speaker 1: at the rate. Are you looking at other clauses that
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  Speaker 1: can affect your partnerships, your mental health, your well-being, right?
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  Speaker 1: A morals clause to simply define basically is saying within
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  Speaker 1: the contract, the brand can terminate you based on morality,
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  Speaker 1: based on If they think that you did something that
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  Speaker 1: could tarnish their brand, that could hurt their bottom line.
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  Speaker 1: In her scenario, she was like, you know, even when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to maybe smoking and they, I guess, let
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  Speaker 1: that one pass. There may be brands that are like,
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  Speaker 1: we don't want you doing certain things online. This will
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  Speaker 1: affect your brand ambassadorship. You may decide that may affect
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  Speaker 1: your ethics to not be able to talk about something online.
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  Speaker 1: Or maybe you're like, you know what? I don't want
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  Speaker 1: to be divisive and talk about certain things. So that
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  Speaker 1: doesn't affect me. However, when it comes to morality clauses
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  Speaker 1: in influencer contracts, I want you all to look deep.
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  Speaker 1: I want you to understand what that means for you.
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  Speaker 1: Who gets to decide? What if it's an accusation? Does
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  Speaker 1: it have to be proven or is it something that
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  Speaker 1: is assumed? Does it go both ways? Do you get
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  Speaker 1: to cancel if the brand does something? Really taking a
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  Speaker 1: deep dive and looking at these morality provisions inside of
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  Speaker 1: your contract. Because ultimately, you could feel like you're walking
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  Speaker 1: on eggshells with this brand partner and you want to
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  Speaker 1: make sure you have a partner. I understand on the
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  Speaker 1: brand side why they would want certain morality provisions, but
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  Speaker 1: it really gets gray on who gets to decide what
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  Speaker 1: that looks like. Another contract term we see a lot
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  Speaker 1: that creators kind of, again, glaze over is the usage
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  Speaker 1: of how the content is going to be used. Now,
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  Speaker 1: in the short term, you're like, oh, I don't care. Like,
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  Speaker 1: let them use it in any single way. But it's interesting.
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  Speaker 1: I was talking to this creator the other day and
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  Speaker 1: her whole premise, her whole business has been built around
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  Speaker 1: body positivity and creating a really safe space for women
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  Speaker 1: to talk about their bodies. Now, a GLP-1 came to her.
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  Speaker 1: She's going to work with them potentially, but she's like,
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  Speaker 1: oh my God, how could this affect my content? Because
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  Speaker 1: now they want to use me on their ads or
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  Speaker 1: on their forward-facing materials. And that doesn't sit well with her, right?
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  Speaker 1: You know, so it's really understanding. How are they going
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  Speaker 1: to use your content? This could hurt your business. And
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  Speaker 1: there is nothing that affects your relationships more with your
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  Speaker 1: audience than, you know, your reputation. And you can't buy
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  Speaker 1: that back, right? If you are someone who talks about,
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  Speaker 1: you know, eating clean and eating healthy, and then now
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  Speaker 1: you're doing a partnership with a different type of brand
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  Speaker 1: and they're running ads and it just doesn't fit with you,
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  Speaker 1: this could really hurt you. Understanding how the brand is
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  Speaker 1: going to use your content. Who owns the content? What
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  Speaker 1: is the timeline? Like this other girl was doing a
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  Speaker 1: training for someone and she was like, oh yeah, I
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  Speaker 1: have a training for them. And I'm like, how long
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  Speaker 1: do they get access to the training? She's like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. Like, can they literally have your video
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  Speaker 1: forever and ever and ever? And again, you want to
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  Speaker 1: look not just how the content is being used, but
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  Speaker 1: for how long is it being used? Where is it
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  Speaker 1: being used? Are you okay with your face being on
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  Speaker 1: the back of an airline in that little commercial setting?
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  Speaker 1: When someone's watching the TV in the back of the
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  Speaker 1: airline and your face is there, maybe you are. I
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  Speaker 1: feel like you should just know. And I'm in the
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  Speaker 1: business of making sure creators get paid, right? So we're
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  Speaker 1: going to make sure we charge for all of that.
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  Speaker 1: But for you, maybe that's not where your head is at. Regardless,
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  Speaker 1: it is important to know. And that's why going really
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  Speaker 1: deep in the usage space, I think, in your contract
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  Speaker 1: is very important. We also talk about the exclusivity space,
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  Speaker 1: making sure in any sort of contract, if a brand
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  Speaker 1: is asking for exclusivity, we charge more. This could wreck
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  Speaker 1: your business. If you glaze over this, this could wreck it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you guys a good example. I
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  Speaker 1: have a creator community. I have over 167,000 creators that
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  Speaker 1: come to me combined on socials. my email list, et cetera. Now,
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  Speaker 1: if a toothpaste company comes to me and is like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we want to be exclusive with you. I don't make
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  Speaker 1: my money on toothpaste. So maybe I'm like, all right, cool.
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  Speaker 1: Let's do a year exclusive contract. Like this is not
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  Speaker 1: going to affect my money. Let's do it. Yes, I
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  Speaker 1: could charge more for it. Or I could just be like,
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  Speaker 1: I know that this is not directly tied to my money.
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  Speaker 1: If Adobe comes to me or a company in the
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  Speaker 1: creator economy, and they're like, we want to be exclusive
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  Speaker 1: with you. You cannot work with any other company, blah, blah, blah.
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  Speaker 1: This could really affect my bottom line, right? So when
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  Speaker 1: it comes to exclusivity, y'all, ask yourself these questions. And also,
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  Speaker 1: is it exclusive against a certain number of competitors? Like
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  Speaker 1: I've seen contracts where the brand is like, okay, just
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  Speaker 1: these five people. Okay, that's very different if they're like
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  Speaker 1: an entire category. Like you cannot work with not one
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  Speaker 1: other lipstick company. Is it lipstick or is it all
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  Speaker 1: beauty in total, right? So really understanding what does that
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  Speaker 1: exclusivity provision mean? How exclusive are we talking? Local creators...
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  Speaker 1: have exclusivity around geography. Now, this one girl was willing
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  Speaker 1: to do so. She's like, I have a local page.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to work with brands in California, so
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  Speaker 1: this makes sense to me. Again, it's just really thinking
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  Speaker 1: really critically about your exclusivity from a location, a category,
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  Speaker 1: as well as time and how it's going to affect
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  Speaker 1: your bottom line. Now, if you need help, guys, with
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  Speaker 1: all of this and pricing, We are really, really well-versed
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  Speaker 1: in creator rates and pricing. And no, we don't just
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  Speaker 1: run to ChatGPT and figure it out. We have our
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  Speaker 1: own formulas and our own systems of valuing your content.
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  Speaker 1: And a lot of these come from the brand side.
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  Speaker 1: I have it in my course. So you can go
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  Speaker 1: ahead and take my course, go to the rate section
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  Speaker 1: and have a ball. Or you could work with me
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  Speaker 1: one-on-one and I can help build your rates together, help
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  Speaker 1: put your proposals together and help put your offers together.
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  Speaker 1: So you feel really confident on what you're charging. for
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  Speaker 1: all of these provisions. Now, another thing that I think
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  Speaker 1: is important when we think about contracts, I'm not a lawyer,
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  Speaker 1: my business partner is. In our pitching course, we have
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  Speaker 1: an entire section on contracts and she did that section
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  Speaker 1: as a lawyer. But I will say something that I
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  Speaker 1: always look for in contracts is being mutual, right? So
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  Speaker 1: like if a brand can drop me, okay, well then
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  Speaker 1: I can drop a brand, right? I wanna make sure
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  Speaker 1: things are fair. Things feel fair mutually, right? So looking
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  Speaker 1: for that sort of wording, because again, chances are the
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  Speaker 1: person who gives the contract The contract was written to
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  Speaker 1: favor them, to protect them. They're not thinking necessarily of you.
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  Speaker 1: So it is up to you as a business owner
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  Speaker 1: to advocate first, to redline, to go through these contracts, say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you know, let's make this mutual. Let's make this mutual.
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  Speaker 1: This feels a little one-sided, right? You have to speak up.
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  Speaker 1: You have to advocate for yourself because no one else will.
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  Speaker 1: It is so very important that you all think critically
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  Speaker 1: before signing anything because I hope today opened your eyes
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  Speaker 1: on some of the contracts clauses that you should be
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  Speaker 1: looking for, especially when it comes to things like morality, usage, exclusivity,
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  Speaker 1: and making sure things are fair on both sides. There's
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  Speaker 1: so many more things that we cover in our contracts program.
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  Speaker 1: And again, if that's something y'all need help with, just
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  Speaker 1: go ahead and click those links below and we can
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  Speaker 1: help you guys. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If
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  Speaker 1: you did, make sure to rate, review, and subscribe to
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  Speaker 1: our show. And visit SidewalkerDaily.com for more resources on all
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  Speaker 1: things influencer marketing and social media. Until next time.