TikTok creator accusing Marc Jacobs of copying her videos is latest example of creator-brand clash

When Marc Jacobs collaborated with TikTok influencer Nara Smith last week on an ad spoofing her characteristically elaborate homemade recipes, TikTok users quickly flooded the comments section to praise the “genius” marketing move and declare that Marc Jacobs’ marketing team “deserves a raise immediately.” @marcjacobs The Tote Bag, made from scratch by @Nara Smith ♬ original sound - marcjacobs Admiration for the video of Smith pretending to make a bright red Marc Jacobs tote bag “from scratch” has since spilled over from TikTok into a slew of LinkedIn think pieces and articles in outlets from The Cut to The Independent. As of this writing, the ad has garnered over 13.8 million views and 2.3 million likes on TikTok, and has been shared more than 179,000 times. But TikTok sleuths soon realized the viral Marc Jacobs video wasn’t the first to revolve around a creator pulling a Marc Jacobs purse out of an oven. The video starring Smith is similar to a TikTok fashion creator Mary Korlin-Downs said she made for the luxury brand as part of an influencer campaign. In the video, posted in December, Korlin-Downs sets a cherry on a baking sheet that transforms into a red Marc Jacobs tote after “baking” in the oven. The Smith video also resembled a separate TikTok Korlin-Downs shared to her 29,000 followers last month, depicting her mixing blueberries into bread dough to produce a navy blue Levi’s tank top. The plagiarism allegations being leveled at Marc Jacobs are the latest in a series of similar accusations creators have raised against brands on TikTok. They raise the question of whether creators can protect their content rights on platforms like TikTok—and how brands should respond when they find themselves on the receiving end of such accusations. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs “We’re in a gray area—there’s no guidebook on this,” said Meridith Rojas, chief marketing officer at MCoBeauty, a beauty products brand. In a previous role, as global head of entertainment and creator marketing at Logitech, Rojas worked with choreographer JaQuel Knight to help 10 creators of color copyright viral TikTok dances they had choreographed but weren’t being credited or compensated for, she said. But for creators like Korlin-Downs, alleging a brand directly plagiarized their video concept or campaign idea is murkier territory than pointing out comparisons between something concrete such as a series of dance moves, Rojas said. As some commenters on Korlin-Downs’ videos have pointed out, it’s nearly impossible for an idea to be completely original and not at least be slightly inspired by an existing concept, Rojas said. However, “inspiration and emulation are two different things,” she said. The creator’s take “I never think one person owns an idea or owns a concept. We are all in this creative field and we all take different versions of this concept and make it our own,” Korlin-Downs said in a video discussing the similarities between her video and the brand’s. "However, I do feel like it wasn’t made [Smith’s] own.” @marykorlindowns Replying to @♡HEAVEN ♡ what a wild monday haha #marcjacobs #narasmith ♬ original sound - Mary Korlin-Downs 🤍 Indeed, a creator can’t claim ownership over a general idea, said Tyler Chou, founder and CEO of the law firm Tyler Chou Law for Creators. However, their expression or execution of that idea is automatically copyright protected when the creator “puts [the idea] in a tangible form, like a video,” she said. In other words, creators have a legal right to elements of their content such as its script, visuals or music, and can allege copyright infringement if another creator or brand closely replicates them, she said. Korlin-Downs is far from the only creator to accuse a brand of duplicating their content without credit. Like Korlin-Downs, who last week posted a a series of TikTok videos discussing the similarities between her content and the Marc Jacobs ad, creator Sharon Mbabazi called out Cetaphil in now-deleted video in February after noticing similarities between Cetaphil’s widely-praised Super Bowl campaign and several videos of her and her stepdad bonding over skincare and football. “I thought, ‘Okay, maybe it’s a coincidence,’ until I saw the dad walk into her room and put skincare under his eyes, like what my stepdad and I did in our video, and he put eye patches under his eye,” Mbabazi said in the video. “Like, literally bar for bar it’s the same concept, same idea.” And just a few months before that, creator and brand consultant Robyn DelMonte, better known online as “Girlbosstown,” called out eos for launching a campaign that closely resembled a concept she had pitched in a TikTok video a year prior for a lip balm brand to “have an ad campaign where people tell the story behind their first kiss and reunite the person with the person they had it with.” “I understand putting my ideas out there online, for free, there’s a chance that brands might take it, execute it and not give me credit and not hire me for the project,” DelMonte said in a video shortly after eos and creative agency Mischief released a short film that mirrored the concept she had suggested. “But this is the first time I’ve ever seen a brand, like, fully rip off my entire idea [and] execute it a year later ... eos, next time you do a commercial, I’ll let it slide this time, but hire me for the next campaign. Let’s do it together.” @girlbosstown #stitch with @GirlBossTown #greenscreen @eos Products ♬ original sound - GirlBossTown For creators, leveraging TikTok or other social platforms to bring awareness to similarities between their content and a brand’s social post or larger campaign is often their best recourse, Rojas said. Mbabazi’s allegations against Cetaphil, for instance, drove hundreds of social media users to flock to the skincare brand’s social channels and demand the skincare brand credit Mbabazi and her stepdad for the concept. Craig Elimeliah, the former chief creative officer at /prompt (the creative agency behind the campaign) told Ad Age in February that his team had never seen Mbabazi’s videos. But the viral controversy still pushed the agency and Cetaphil to contact Mbabazi within a few days of her accusing the brand of plagiarizing her social content. “Cetaphil has reached out and acknowledged all the videos and the content, and they’ve made things right with us,” Mbabazi said in a follow-up video. She posted a Cetaphil-sponsored video the next day. @sharavinaaa Yesterday’s pregame chat with my stepdad 🤣 he loves barging into my room. #CetaphilPartner #GameTimeGlow #CetaphilFamily #ad ♬ original sound - Sharon Mbabazi Eos reached out to DelMonte “both publicly and privately ... to confirm we were unaware of her TikTok” shortly after her video alleging the brand had stolen her campaign concept began gaining traction on social media, Soyoung Kang, its chief marketing officer, said in a statement to Marketing Brew. In the same statement, she said any similarities between her video and the eos campaign were “one crazy big coincidence,” and that “we’d love to work with Robyn in the future.” Marc Jacobs declined to comment on the similarities between Korlin-Downs’ video and its collaboration with Smith. Korlin-Downs, much like Mbabazi and DelMonte, has garnered an outpouring of support since posting about her situation. Pop culture commentator @Culturework spliced together clips of Korlin-Downs’ and Marc Jacobs’ videos to highlight their “frame for frame” resemblance in a TikTok video that has since received 2.8 million views. Dozens of other users have left comments on Marc Jacobs’ video giving Korlin-Downs credit for the Smith ad. @culturework @marcjacobs, since you wrote the check. #fyp cc: @Mary Korlin-Downs 🤍 ♬ original sound - culturework Creators who feel less aggrieved by a brand emulating their content without credit could also use the situation as an opportunity to pitch themselves to the brand as a potential collaborator, Rojas said. “If the creator approaches it in a non-confrontational way, where it’s like, ‘Hey, I love your spot. I actually think it’s similar to my work, and I’d love to talk to you guys. Clearly, we have similar ideas, and I have content that I think would resonate with your audience or really elevate your content,’” she said. “You can use it as an entry point ... if you think there’s enough differences and you’re not being completely copied.” Idea versus execution In the rapidly growing creator economy, the rules of right and wrong when it comes to copyright and plagiarizing ideas are murky. It is incredibly important for creators, when working with a brand, to closely inspect the terms and conditions of any contract or agreement put in front of them for any stipulations that would give the brand or an agency ownership over the creator’s execution of an idea, Chou said. “If there’s no contract in place, then just gifting somebody something doesn’t implicitly give [a brand] the right to the concept or the video,” she said. Cannes takeaways for creators—and what to know for next year Korlin-Downs said she didn’t sign an official contract as part of her collaboration with Marc Jacobs, but the December campaign listing did specify the brand would have digital usage rights over her video for a period of six months and could run it as a paid ad on TikTok or Instagram. “I don’t know if most creators know this, but all videos are [copyright] protected immediately,” Chou said. “Every time you [post a video] you don’t have to go to the copyright office to get a copyright ... And as attorneys, we use the layperson or reasonable person standard. So, if you were on a jury and you saw two videos together, would you feel like they were similar enough?” See all of the 2024 Small Agency award winners here Unlike in the Cetaphil and eos controversies, the fact that Korlin-Downs’ video was part of a collaboration with Marc Jacobs rather than organic social content lends more credence to her plagiarism accusations, Chou added. “This was a creator who they had gifted [a product]—she would’ve been on their radar,” she said “If I was representing Mary, it’d be a better case for us, because Marc Jacobs knew about this. They could claim, ‘Well, we didn’t know about this video,’ but then we could say, ‘You gifted this bag to her and she made this video. You knew she did this.’” “I only take gifted collabs with brands that I’d like to build a relationship with, in hopes that if I’m creating good content, they’ll [later] come to me for paid or branded content,” Korlin-Downs said. She decided to participate in the collaboration and receive a Marc Jacobs tote in lieu of a cash payment because the brand is one of her “creative idols,” she said—and because she viewed one of the brand’s tote bags (which can range in price from $325 to $595, depending on size) as fair compensation for a single TikTok video given her relatively small following. @marykorlindowns Baked🍒 and glazed in 🤍 #creativedirecting #marcjacobs #marcjacobstote #thetotebag #popofred♥️ #popofredoutfits #marcjacobsbag #creativedirector #creativedirecting #fashiontiktok #fashionhacks #fashioninspo #fashionbag #designerbags #designerfashion #fashionconcepts #creativeconceptfilms #creativephotography #creativeshots #creativeideas #creativeshots #cherryred ♬ Cherry - Lana Del Rey She submitted the video through a brand-creator marketplace platform hosted by influencer marketing agency Buttermilk, which allows brands to post open campaign listings inviting creators to submit content. Buttermilk declined to comment. Just a few weeks before Marc Jacobs posted its Smith video, Korlin-Downs had accepted an offer to collaborate with the brand on another gifted campaign, this one run through a different agency, Influencer Marketing Factory, she said. She planned to post her video for the new campaign last week, “but then this whole thing happened. So, I reached out to [the agency] and told them, ‘I don’t know if I feel totally comfortable making gifted content now,’ and I sent them the Marc Jacobs video,” she said. Influencer Marketing Factory wasn’t involved in Korlin-Downs’ previous work with Marc Jacobs or the brand’s collaboration with Smith, a representative for the agency told Ad Age. “We are sympathetic to the situation, and shared, for transparency, her message to our point of contact [at Marc Jacobs] … but we are external to anything that has happened [or] is happening right now.” Smith herself has also been accused of copying content from other creators. For several months, TikTok users have been pointing out similarities between her videos and those of South African creator Onezwa Mbola. Smith did not return a request to comment. 40 under 40 entries are open The final deadline for nominations is Aug. 2 Enter here Crediting creators Brands can also take precautions to avoid unwittingly replicating a video they came across on social media without crediting the creator of it, Rojas said. Creative teams, whether internal or external, should diligently track any reference materials or inspiration content they collect while developing a campaign so they can compare their work to those materials and “aren’t just taking the idea as is,” she said. “Inspiration and emulation are two different things.” If a brand is taking inspiration from a creator’s content, the brand should, at the very least, give the creator credit as a contributor or creative producer and compensate them as such, Rojas said. Creators such as Korlin-Downs and DelMonte who identify not just as content creators but as creative directors or brand consultants often share content or campaign ideas in hopes of “build[ing] their pipeline of clients,” she said, and having a brand (intentionally or not) take the ideas they share on social media can make them “feel taken advantage of.” “Credit might have been enough for [Korlin-Downs]—maybe just being attached to the video as the creative producer or ‘idea inspired by’ would’ve sort of given her the opportunity and visibility that would have made her feel good” and sufficiently acknowledged by Marc Jacobs, Rojas said. And even if the brand doesn’t necessarily want to partner with the creator as talent for their campaign or social content, the brand could “lean into that creator and leverage them as a consultant on the project,” she said. Indeed, for Korlin-Downs, who recently co-founded a design and creative agency, Cropd, the biggest issue isn’t that she potentially missed out on a paycheck from Marc Jacobs—it’s that while Marc Jacobs and Smith have received hundreds upon thousands of comments and posts lauding their “marketing genius,” she’s received no hint of credit from the brand, she said.

TikTok creator accusing Marc Jacobs of copying her videos is latest example of creator-brand clash

Featured Stories