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With a potential ban on TikTok in the US looming, creators are adjusting their approach to partnership deals to avoid being left holding the bag if — or when — the platform goes down.
Although the upcoming ban on TikTok in the United States will take effect sooner January 19it’s already threatening some creators’ brand partnership businesses. With the deadline approaching, TikTok has become an increasingly risky prospect for advertisers, some of whom said they have slowed their spending on TikTok content accordingly.
“We’ve refused to sign any new clients on TikTok at all — and that’s a little worrying from a business perspective,” said Nicole Rechtszaid, head of creator partnerships and social strategy at creative agency Ghost Agency, who told Digiday that her company’s existing TikTok campaigns will run. until they are able to implement them. “We’re trying to figure out where else brands can participate, and it’s very shaky ground for us. As we’ve gone through them, we don’t want to encourage any brands to start their activation there.”
higher power
Creators’ caution about TikTok is a result of force majeure provisions that are often standard for dealing with branded content. Creators’ contracts with potential sponsors usually include this type of clause, which stipulates that creators will keep branded content on their sites for a set period of time, often six or 12 months, before removing it. But with no guarantee that TikTok or any of its content will be available to US users in the coming months, some creators are pushing to remove the line from recent partnership deals with the brand, fearing they could be found in breach if users lose access to TikTok. .
“We always have our account managers or contract specialists remove it because we have no control over it,” said Samantha Hicks, managing director of influencer talent agency Shine Talent Group. “Yes, we can say Talent X won’t proactively delete it from their feed because it just doesn’t fit their aesthetic anymore – but we have no control over Instagram going out of business, and we don’t want our talent to be responsible for something they have no control over .”
Another way creators are modifying their brand partnership agreements to ensure post-ban safety is to avoid wording that states they’ll only get paid if they post their products on TikTok. Instead, some drafters are pushing to add contract clauses that outline alternative broadcast schedules on other platforms in the event of a potential TikTok ban.
Ghost Agency, for example, signed a contract with one client earlier this month that said it would post its content on other social platforms if banned on January 19.
“If I was drafting a contract and that was a problem – which of course it is right now – I would just have it in the Services section. Whenever we say content will be published on TikTok, we say ‘TikTok or by,'” said Ghost Agency director of commercial and legal affairs Rebecca Rechtszaid. “And then we’ll have another paragraph that says in the event that TikTok shuts down, we’ll mutually agree on another platform that works for us, or something along those lines.”
Delivery via platform
It has become imperative for both TikTok creators and the agencies that work with them to adjust the scope, terms and purpose of their brand partnership to focus more on the output itself, rather than the platform on which it is published. This shift away from a platform-specific focus was the result of news of TikTok’s impending ban last year, but has gradually become an increasingly common practice for brand partnership deals across various social channels.
“Now you’re 100 percent seeing all the brands recognize this as a reality: If it could happen on TikTok, it could happen anywhere,” said Jake Webb, founder and CEO of talent management company Slash Management. “So let’s hedge our bets and realize that while social media will never really go away, today’s social networks will.”
Regardless of the potential contractual issues raised by the TikTok ban, TikTok creators are confident that their brand partners will continue to look for ways to work with them as they expand to different platforms, rather than claiming against the creators for any theoretical infringement caused by the ban. . Even if brands are legally allowed to do so, punishing creators for banning a platform beyond their control would risk damaging the brand’s reputation in the creator community.
“Technically, the creator did not download the content; it’s really just that the app exploded, right?” said the TikTok creator xeviwho requested anonymity to avoid being doxxed by his fans. “I would imagine that most companies will take it as a loss and let it go – because if they don’t, it will be a bad look.”
