The Legal Nature of Endorsement Cooperation
The use of a person's name or image in advertising is regulated by the Georgian Law on Advertising. Article 3 defines advertising as information disseminated by any means and in any form about goods, services and works, about natural persons and legal entities, about ideas and initiatives, aimed at an indefinite circle of persons and serving the formation and maintenance of interest, as well as the promotion of sales. The endorsement of a product by an athlete, artist or public figure thus falls squarely within the definition of advertising, and the relationship is governed by the requirements of the law.
The law also distinguishes the subjects of advertising: the customer of advertising is the source of the information for its subsequent production, placement and dissemination; the producer gives the advertising information its finished form; the distributor places and disseminates it using property, including broadcasting and communication channels; and the consumer is the person for whose attention the information is disseminated. When concluding an endorsement contract, it is important to establish who occupies each role, because the allocation of responsibility follows precisely from that.