PR firm says multifaceted Luka Sabbat forgot to post

Sabbat's Day

Luka Sabbat is hard to define. Intentionally.

"I don't believe in titles I believe you do what you want and find the right people who share your vision," the 20-year-old writes on his website. "If i had to put a name to it, I am a Creative Entrepreneur exploring all the world has to offer. Stylist, Creative Director, Design Director, Actor, Model, etc....."

Note: The punctuation and capitalization choices are all his.

In 2018, this attempt at self-definition is associated with distinguishing oneself as a social media influencer. If there's any cultural role that sums up the present moment, the social media influencer role is it (here's a list of our previous coverage on influencers and their travails).

Nice Work If You Can Get It ...

Aside from his wide-ranging interests, Sabbat boasts a public profile that other up-and-coming online celebs surely envy. First, he has a television role with his own spot on Young-ish, a cable spinoff of ABC's hit Black-ish. Second, he may have had some sort of romantic attachment to Kourtney Kardashian. And that seems to have been the catalyst for his nascent career as an influencer.

According to Esquire, Sabbat signed an influencer contract with PR Consulting (PRC), a brand imaging and public relations firm, the day after he was first photographed and associated with Kardashian.

Although Sabbat is still in the minor leagues of online influence when compared with Kardashian (or other family members who share her last name), the deal he swung was very lucrative compared with a typical job. According to PRC, Sabbat was contracted to promote the Snap, Inc., line of eyewear (one of PRC's clients), including posting three Instagram stories and one Instagram feed post during and related to fashion week events in New York, Paris or Milan. He also agreed to be photographed wearing Snap's products during the Milan and Paris fashion weeks.

He would be paid $60,000 for his efforts. Three-quarters of that was paid upfront.

The Takeaway

Unfortunately, the arrangement soured rapidly. At the tail end of October 2018, PRC sued Sabbat in New York Supreme Court for failing to live up to his side of the bargain. PRC's complaint alleges that Sabbat did not post all the required material and failed to be photographed sporting Snap's eyewear.

What's more, PRC maintains that Sabbat admitted that he had failed at his appointed tasks but refused to return the funds. Sabbat is being sued for breach of contract and unjust enrichment, and PRC is seeking the return of its payment and claiming monetary damages.

This dispute represents an unusually high-profile legal dispute between influencers and their agency enablers. Normally, we're reporting about influencers who fall afoul of advertising regulations; but as online influence matures as a market, expect conflicts like Sabbat's to surface in greater numbers. Also, this scenario is another example of the prevalence of influencers on social media platforms who have become subject to increased scrutiny in regulatory and litigation proceedings. As this ever-growing method of leveraging people's social media presence to promote and advertise products continues to gain ground as an effective business plan, we will surely see continued disputes between and among brands, influencer agencies and the influencers themselves. The need for good contracting for these relationships should be apparent, but is too often ignored.

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