Brand authenticity is the gold standard for product marketing. These days companies are increasingly relying on social media “influencers” for marketing in an effort to add credibility and authenticity. In 2017, influencer marketing was estimated to be worth $2 billion and it is set to reach $10 billion by 2020.

Influencers may be celebrities, artists, YouTube personalities, or anyone else with a social medial profile and a significant number or niche group of followers. Influencer marketing campaigns typically involve content (picture, video, text, etc.) that is created and posted by the individual influencer, but that pushes a company's advertising message. This can be a product review video on YouTube or an arty Instagram photo of the product, for example. Most importantly, the content in effective influencer marketing campaigns appears to come from an impartial, trusted third-party (the influencer), rather than from the advertisers themselves, thus the authenticity.

While often successful, there are challenges with these campaigns when it comes to intellectual property matters. Influencer marketing can blur the lines between content owner and creator and open up a company to liability for content created by someone else. In addition, the Federal Trade Commission is keeping a watchful eye on influencer marketing and will apply traditional advertising rules and hold companies responsible for violations.