An Open Letter to Creatives: "How to protect your creativity from companies and organisations you look up to"

This is an open letter and a case study to young creatives as well as future senior marketing professionals in the hope that the type of "not so positive experience" I had start to happens less and less, as time evolves and we all become better people and better, fairer organisations too.

This is a factual case that gives you the opportunity to keep in mind ways to always implement procedures to protect your ideas and creativity (if you are a creative) or to support and protect the ideas and creativity of others (if you are an organisation). Currently the legislation around Intellectual property is very weak and the loopholes are many, making it very difficult for many creatives to protect themselves after any issue arise. We can however protect ourselves before they arise, so it is up to all us to make this change.

Before outlining the actual case study, these are the key points/lessons I have learned from this, the focus is the positives:

To Creatives:

1) No matter how much you admire/respect/look up to an organisation or business, at the end of the day they are all ran by people like us, who are also trying to make a difference (to themselves or others) and might make mistakes along the way. Safeguarding your creativity/ideas not only helps you, but also helps them (individuals within organisations) not to inadvertently put you in a difficult position.

2) When sharing a concept, plan or even marketing strategy in the hope businesses and organisations support you, have an NDA or written agreement in place before sharing and add a note in all email communication that you give no consent for the concept/idea to be used commercially without your permission. Make this super visible and clear as only this in itself might flag them that acting on the ideas could cause issues to both parties.

3) Anyone can copy/reproduce/recreate anything you create and call it theirs by making a slight change. It's as simple as that. The laws are incredible hard to enforce in the digital world. There has never been so much copied material.

The only way to protect yourself legally is a trademark but even that is complicated if they make a slight change to the original idea. So whatever you do and share with the world, make a point to keep the historic data (when it was created/shared/links/who was reached and leave it all visible online).

4) It is incredibly costly to sue and most solicitors advise not to sue because the law is so flawed you might spend a fortune and lose it. The only way you can definitely protect yourself is before you share what you create, not after.

To Organisations:

1) Before launching a new advert, campaign or artwork, make sure enough time is allocated to do the due diligence work of check if the same campaign concept or very similar artwork or advert has been ran or done by other members of the same industry in the same region before.

2) If the campaign/advert/artwork was already done (and especially if your team has been reached to be informed of it) either use a different name, change the concept slightly or if you really love the idea, do what is the most wonderful thing you can do: Contact the creative to let him/her know you would like to use the same idea, get them onboard to support in anyway they can (which does not necessarily mean hiring them or their services, if the creative is open and willing, it can be a simple collaboration too), credit the creative in anyway you can.

3) If you fail at all the above for any reasons:

a) Take the necessary steps to establish a positive relationship with the creative, correct the mistake, starting with courtesy.

b) Train your staff to make sure the same mistake does not happen again. Teach them to value the work of creatives as they are key to the outcome.

The Facts for the case study:

During lockdown, I, via the work I do through Hotel News Scotland (which falls under "the creative" category) launched a marketing campaign to encourage national and international visitors to come to the region as soon as they were able to travel again, called #ScotlandIsCalling. This was June 2020 and the campaign was noncommercial. I just decided to put my own time and ￡2k of my own money to support an industry I love.

Having worked with the tourism/hotel industry in this region for over a decade the first thing I did was to contact VisitScotland's marketing team (which falls in the category of "an organisation") outlining the campaign, being the Scottish Tourism board, any of us working in the sector do our best to support it and we all rely on it because their marketing budget is much higher than all our marketing budgets combined. We help each other. This applies to every business working within the tourism sector, in my case the focus has always been Scottish Hotels.

What happened after contact:

No replies to anything which often happens these days with all of us, but more than one email was sent.

The campaign was shared online with the support of a group of Scottish Hotels and businesses, using the website and social media with the hashtag #Scotlandiscalling.

In September 2021, VisitScotland launches their #Scotlandiscalling ￡1 million marketing campaign.

Several people got in touch saying how delighted they were my idea had been adopted by VisitScotland and that they were happy we were working together. Several people were informed I had nothing to do with the new campaign and that their team never reached me.

I reached VisitScotland with a firm email to confront/ask what happened, I was told "great minds think alike" and they acknowledged that they did receive all emails a year before. They apologise for not contacting me and encouraged me to keep using the hashtag too (of course I did).

June 2022, VisitScotland wins a marketing award for their marketing efforts with the #Scotlandiscalling campaign. Which is totally well deserved I must admit. And of course, a ￡2k budget would never do as well as a ￡1 million budget, and it is all for the benefit of Scotland which was since the beginning the focus and reason of the creation of the campaign by Hotel News Scotland too.

The personal side:

Things I have heard from many people:

• This happens all the time
• Be proud that your idea was used
• Well done for thinking of it first

Well it only happens all the time to creatives because we don't seem to care so much or speak about it so much right? Because we "normalise" it making it acceptable. We just move on creating new things (which is what I did too). But maybe we can make things better for everyone by being more careful.

What I really feel:

VisitScotland lost one of the most loyal and active supporters of their industry and region in the last 15 years. The lack of consideration and professionalism knocked me for six.

It was never about the money, it was a noncommercial campaign. It was about working together for the greater good and it is about respecting and appreciating the ideas and work of others.

I am genuinely delighted the result of the campaign was a huge success, so many hard working people involved in this should be congratulated, so many talented creatives involved and so many benefit from it: All the people and businesses who rely on this sector. None of the above goes against the positive results of it. The result is 100% positive for the cause.

Let's just make sure we are always striving to be fairer and better.

Protect your creativity and the creativity of others, it is not up for grabs unless you/they are happy for it to be.

Renata Fernandes

www.Hotelnews.scot