ONE FOR THE ROAD
Imagine being at a crowded concert or sporting event in a massive stadium or arena. You line up at one of the food outlets during half time, glance up at the illuminated menu board, only to see your own face staring back at you. No, it's not a mirror. It’s one of those garden variety illuminated overhead menu boards that has become the standard for fast food restaurants; the only difference is there’s a video of you enjoying their food playing on loop in between the menu items. Confused, you squint a bit then rub your eyes as way to refresh what you think you saw and make sense of it.
Confusion quickly transforms into shock as you realize that this fast-food company has shamelessly stolen your image, and used it as the centerpiece of their advertising campaign. You barely have enough time to digest what you are seeing, so you check the company’s social media pages and see the same video of you being used as a paid promotion. Since 2019! That is four years of profiting from your image and deceiving their customers. All without your knowledge and consent — much less compensation.
Sounds a bit like an episode of Black Mirror, I know, but sadly, this just happened to me last week. Now I’m not expecting everyone to understand the gravity of the problem in the same way I see it; I can appreciate that there are some who feel that any publicity is good publicity and maybe an apology and a token amount to compensate me would be the best way to redress the issue, but when your image and reputation is your single source of income, the unauthorized use of it is not only theft, but sabotage, because it also deprives you from potential income from competing brands simply because of the association.
Then there’s the issue of whether the product or service your image has been associated with is something you would even want to be associated with in the first place. One of the most difficult business decisions my team and I make in my line of work is choosing which accounts to accept and which ones we have to turn down. It is not easy, believe me. The temptation to just accept the highest bidder is very short-term thinking because it could damage your brand in the long run.
This is why we carefully research each brand we engage with because credibility is the most valuable currency we have. Actually, its the only currency. It’s easy to just say yes to every offer, but we don’t because aside from the credibility issue, there’s the scarcity issue. Unlike selling goods and services, a brand ambassador or endorser can only monetize their image with one customer in the same sector at same time. In other words, you can’t endorse Pepsi and Coke in the same lifetime. Or at very least until you have served a significant drying out period.
Counterfeiting a person’s image, is like counterfeiting money — just a lot more personal. This is why we have copyright and image laws in place to begin with. In the past, my team and I have handled these infractions privately by way of a demand letter. But as this seems to be happening more and more (I’ve actually lost count of the amount of times we have had to send demand letters to companies that have used my image without consent) and the fact that the company seen zoned my manager when we reached out politely, I’ve chosen to write about it this time to set an example as well as file a case to test out our copyright and image use laws out for myself. Because having a law is great, but it only becomes useful when it is enforced.