Three rules for brands sharing memes

Chris Warren

This article provides marketers with key rules on sharing GIFs, memes and celebrity images on social media in order to avoid legal issues.

What must have initially seemed like a social media marketing coup ended up garnering attention for all the wrong reasons. In 2014, a drugstore chain in New York posted a paparazzi photo to its Facebook and Twitter accounts of an actress carrying the store's shopping bags. To be sure, the brand's social media posts got a lot of attention, though not necessarily in the way the company had hoped. The actress filed a $6 million lawsuit against the company, claiming among other things that state laws protecting the use of her likeness for commercial purposes had been violated. She eventually...

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