Companies Combine Distribution with Talent & Rights Management, Aiming to Save Clients Millions of Dollars in Litigation

Global digital asset management and advertising delivery tech company Adstream, and talent and rights management firm The TEAM Companies (TTC) have expanded their existing collaboration to form a comprehensive strategic partnership. Together, the two companies will provide end-to-end advertising services that will enable brands, agencies and production teams to manage talent use, rights, and content delivery through a single process.

The partnership will benefit both parties: The TEAM companies, which specializes in payroll for crew and talent as well as business affairs and rights management, can leverage Adstream’s asset management, storage and delivery services. Simultaneously, Adstream will be able to offer U.S.-based talent and crew services to production teams and existing global clients including McCann, P&G, and Mastercard.

Addressing the redundancies in the advertising creative supply chain, Adstream and TTC are utilizing their expertise to build on the momentum of the Ad Consortium, an organization formed to establish best practices in the payment, tracking and distribution of talent and licensed elements across advertising assets, of which they are both members.

“Brands and their creative agencies demand more transparency a better, more streamlined experience when it comes to paying talent and tracking talent and licensed content use. Expanding our relationship will enable us to provide a best-in-class solution, provide EOR services to all our partners in the consortium, which ultimately is better for clients,” stated Greg Smith, COO of TTC.

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“We know in the market, brands are being impacted by millions of dollars due to overusing assets with expired talent usage rights. From a technology perspective, we know we can alleviate this issue and make our clients’ lives easier, especially as they expand the channels they are delivering content to, to ensure all elements are being used in a contractually appropriate way,” stated Geoff Hoffman, CEO of Adstream, North America.

Recent litigation has brought this issue to the forefront of the advertising world. In 2017, a number of high-profile cases were filed against brands and their creative partners by talent and intellectual property owners over the use of their likeness or IP without permission. In one such case, two football players from Ohio State University sued their alma mater for using their likenesses “without their permission and without compensation” in promotional marketing collateral distributed after the contract expiration date.

TTC will integrate essential talent and licensed element rights data and support documentation into the asset management and ad delivery services of Adstream, and vice-versa.

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“Our goal has always been to provide transparency and streamline what can be a complicated and fragmented process,” stated Hoffman, adding, “Our customers – both brands and agencies – want everything managed in one place, and this partnership is big a step toward that solution. Brands and agencies will know right away what content is valid and what has expired right in our platform.”

The two companies share clients ranging from Fortune 100 advertisers and global ad agencies to production and post-production companies. This strategic relationship addresses needs on both the creative and operational sides of the business. With the shift toward total ad process integration and complete ad campaign management in a centralized location, users of both companies will benefit from increased visibility at all steps of the creative content creation process.

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