Ethic AI

28 Feb 2020

Thierry Jabr

MDM 2019/2020

Course: The Laws of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

Individual Project

Presented to:

Dr. Andrea Ottolia

Two questions:

1. Choose a company drawing a new digital marketing campaign, which intellectual assets might be involved?
2. Why is explainable AI important?

Choose a company drawing a new digital marketing campaign, which intellectual assets might be involved?

Company introduction:

Nestle professional is the B2B division of Nestle with a mission to grow their client’s businesses through offering creative, branded beverage & culinary solutions. The company has many popular brands under its portfolio such as Nescafé, KitKat & Maggi.

Proposed marketing Campaign

Description: Nestle Professional or (NP) will hire a creative digital ad agency to create short funny videos (15-30 seconds) highlighting the benefits of installing a coffee solution (comprising of ingredients & machine supply) inside offices.

Goal: The new marketing campaign will have for prime objective: Lead generation.

NP is highly interested in gathering high quality leads. Those leads will be treated by the sales team of the company so they can be converted into customers in the subsequent period.

Medium: Online platforms specifically YouTube & LinkedIn.

Mechanism: People clicking on the video will be redirected to a web form which they will have to fill in order to obtain additional information such as downloading a product brochure. The web form asks users to fill information such as name, location, phone number, email, job title, organization name & size. The web form will include a consent clause which user will have to tick allowing the company to store & use the data for future sales & marketing activities.

Below is a snapshot of the draft of terms & conditions page to be made accessible to the user by pressing a link on the form:

Content provided by NP All intellectual property rights, including copyright and trademarks, in materials published by or on behalf of NP on the form (e.g. text and images) are owned by NP

Content provided by You. You represent to NP that you are either the author of the content that you contribute to this form, or that you are able to contribute such content to the form. You agree that such content will be treated as non-confidential and you grant NP license to use the content you provide for purposes relating to its business. NP may use the content for promotional, advertising and other purposes and you will not be entitled to any compensation for such use.

IPRs involved:

1. Copyrights

As per standard copyright law, the creator of the design and content automatically becomes the legal owner of the design or content in question. In our case, the creative digital agency is the creator hence the owner. Nestle Professional is solely interested in the final output of this work, not in the tools, handbook or source file that were needed to come up with the final video. However, Nestle needs to clearly stipulate in a prior agreement that it has full copyrights on the final artwork (video storyline, video message) once approved including their logo used to avoid any future misuse.

1. Patent

Nescafe Machines, in our case Nescafe hot solution machine for offices named “Nescafe Alegria” meaning l’allegria or joy while sipping a cup of coffee, is protected by many patents. To be exact, the dispensing system is protected by patent as it is uniquely engineered in a way that hot coffee is dispensed in matters of seconds while maintaining the rich aroma & flavor of the coffee. More than 80 engineers & beverage scientist worked around that system over the course of more than 5 years in Orbe, Switzerland in order to reach the level of effectiveness & efficiency the machine is dotted with. Nestle professional ensures customers, suppliers & even partners such as our ad agency in our case are made aware of that avoiding any potential imitation of this innovative technical solution.

Taking it one step further, Nestle has set up a legal contract named “Nestle Trade Asset Agreement” in which any business who wishes to enjoy the coffee machine at their premise is bound to sign the agreement which preserves the ownership of the machine by Nestle. Machines are only provided “free on loan” during the contract duration. The contract is of one year duration & not automatically renewed meaning at the end of the term, if both parties do not agree to renew the contract, the Nescafé machine will be automatically restored .The customer is mandated to purchase regular supply of coffee ingredients in order to respect the contract commercial terms. Failure to do so within a time period of 3 months gives Nestle full right to retrieve the machine without prior notice.

1. Trademarks

A trademark is an identifiable phrase, word, or symbol that denotes a specific product and legally differentiates it from all other products of its kind. A trademark exclusively identifies a product as belonging to a precise company and recognizes the company's ownership of the brand.

For our campaign, the Brand Nescafe is one Trademark that we need to protect, as well as the product itself “Nescafe Alegria Hot machine”.  The catchphrase “Bring the café experience to your office & create your own work happy culture” that is the main message of the videos & which will be used across will be also subject to trademark to avoid other companies from using it or allowing the agency to use it for other clients.

1. Database

Under article 7 in order to hold a sui generis rights to database the enterprise must show that «there has been qualitatively and/or quantitatively a substantial investment in either the obtaining, verification or presentation of the contents

Nestle professional is investing a significant marketing budget in coming up with the creatives (video stories) and then distributing it along the platforms, paying for ad space so they can show on user home feed or while they are browsing. Such investment is for the purpose of setting up a useful database rich with leads details that can be used for sales & marketing purposes.

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