Can You Use a Real Brand in an AI Spec Ad?

What AI ad contests say about real brands

Read the rules before you pick a product. The AI ad contests of 2026 handle real brands in four ways.

Runway's contest bans them. Runway's Big Ad Contest rules say an entry must "Not depict, reference, or include the name, logo, trademark, trade dress, or other intellectual property of any real-world brand, company, or commercial product." Both 2026 editions, in March and in July, ran on made-up products, and the second edition's seven fictional briefs each came with a product image and logo to use.

Formula E and Atlanta AI Ad Fest hand you one real brand, and only that one. The Formula E Creators Challenge, presented by Bionic Awards and Google Cloud, asks for a film of up to 60 seconds about Formula E's GEN4 car and requires that "Elements from the GEN4 Asset Kit must be on screen for at least 4 seconds." It also says you own the film as a creative work "but not any Formula E material (like the GEN4 Asset Kit) used within it." Atlanta AI Ad Fest asks for a 30 to 60 second film for one of four Brand Exclusive Tracks, and its rules, updated August 5, 2026, say "Entries created for brands outside the four official AIAF 2026 Brand Exclusive Tracks are not eligible for competition judging." Read the next line too: "Copyright in each submitted film is owned jointly by Atlanta AI Ad Fest (AIAF) and the brand party featured within the work." Curious Refuge ran its 2024 advertising competition the same way, with entries limited to brands named in its rules.

Luma made itself the client. Luma's $1 million Dream Brief asked creatives to make commercials "for Luma itself," and Luma's announcement says why: "In line with Cannes Lions' rules, Luma AI will provide a brief to ensure the work is legitimate and created for a real client." Luma also paid for media so the finalists' ads ran publicly within the eligibility period Cannes requires.

Festivals with a general ad category leave the rights to you. The rules of Golden Dunes Dubai, which runs a Best AI Commercial award, say "The submitter must hold full rights to the film, including music, visuals and any AI-generated content." A logo you have no license for is one of those rights you do not hold.

Why award shows care: real work for real clients

Cannes Lions, advertising's biggest award show, puts the rule in writing. Its eligibility rules require work "created within the context of a normal paying contract and genuine brief from a brand," signed off by a senior executive at the brand, and state that "The entry is not speculative or conceptual advertising." The 2026 rules also say "You must indicate if AI has been used in the work or the entry materials and for what purpose." The LIONS integrity standards warn that breaking the rules "may result in disqualification, withdrawal of awards, exclusion from our Juries or even a ban from future Festivals."

So a spec ad for a real brand is a portfolio piece or a private pitch. It becomes an award entry only when a brand, or a contest acting for one, supplies the brief.

Trademark basics for a spec ad

In the United States, three parts of the Lanham Act come up. Infringement under 15 U.S.C. 1114 covers using a registered mark "in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services" in a way that is "likely to cause confusion." False endorsement under 15 U.S.C. 1125(a) covers suggesting the brand's "sponsorship, or approval" of your work. Dilution under section 1125(c) protects famous marks "regardless of the presence or absence of actual or likely confusion," but lists "Any noncommercial use of a mark" among its exclusions.

Whether a use is commercial matters under all three. A spot you send only to the brand, and never use to sell anything, is a different thing from the same spot in a paid contest entry, on a reel that sells your services, or run as an ad.

Two cases mark the edges. New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing (9th Cir. 1992) allows using a brand's name to refer to the brand, but only if "the user must do nothing that would, in conjunction with the mark, suggest sponsorship or endorsement by the trademark holder." A spec ad styled as the brand's own campaign does exactly that. And a near-copy of a real brand is not a safe fictional one. In Jack Daniel's Properties v. VIP Products (2023), the Supreme Court held unanimously that when a mark is used "as a designation of source for the infringer's own goods, the Rogers test does not apply," so a parody brand gets no special First Amendment screen.

The UK and the EU work the same way in outline. Section 10 of the UK Trade Marks Act 1994 and Article 9 of the EU trade mark regulation both list using a sign in advertising among the acts an owner can stop, where the other conditions, such as a likelihood of confusion, are met.

Real people in a real brand's ad

A real face brings a second set of rights, and AI ads now have rules of their own. Runway's contest rules also bar "the likeness, voice, or image of any real, identifiable individual without documented written consent." Tennessee's ELVIS Act, in force since July 1, 2024, says "Every individual has a property right in the use of that individual's name, photograph, voice, or likeness in any medium in any manner."

New York covers the opposite case, an AI person who looks like nobody. A law signed on December 11, 2025 (Chapter 617) requires an advertiser to "conspicuously disclose" a synthetic performer in an ad, meaning a digital human "not recognizable as any identifiable natural performer," with civil penalties of $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for each one after. It takes effect 180 days after it became law. For a paid AI spot that will run in New York, plan the disclosure with the client from the start.

Safer ways to get brand work on your reel

• Invent the brand. A fictional product with its own name, logo and pack gives you everything a real one would on the reel, with no trademark in the frame. It is also what Runway's contest asked for.
• Enter the brand-brief contests. Formula E's asset kit and Atlanta's brand tracks come with permission built in, and a finalist placing is a real brand credit.
• Pitch privately. Send the spot to the brand's marketing team as an unlisted link, say plainly that it is unsolicited spec work, and do not run it as an ad, monetize it or enter it anywhere.
• Ask a small brand. A local coffee roaster or a new skincare line may say yes to a free spec spot in exchange for using it on your reel. Get the yes in writing (an email is fine) and say where the spot will appear.
• Shoot the product yourself. Buy it and photograph it for your references instead of lifting the brand's own product photos, which carry their own copyright.

If you publish a spec ad at all, label it on the end card and in the description: "Spec ad. Not made for, affiliated with or endorsed by [brand]." A label shows good faith. It does not give you a license, and it will not fix a spot that looks like the brand's own campaign.

Where Overs fits once you have permission

Overs is for brand work you are cleared to do, such as a client's product or a brief that supplies the product. You give it one photo of the product and the brand's own material, its website, its photos and an optional brand guidelines PDF of up to 24 pages. It studies the brand and applies the brand rules last, so they have the final say over every photo.

It also keeps the paper trail that rules like these ask for. Every photo in an Overs export carries a record of the prompt, the model and the reference pictures behind it, and in a shared workspace Overs records who decided on each photo, with a reason for every rejection. When a contest or a client asks how an image was made, you have the answer on file. Overs makes stills and writes a motion prompt per photo for Seedance or Veo; the video is made in your video tool.

Overs was built on the process 100 Creatives, the agency Abhi Chawla founded, used to make hundreds of photos a week for hundreds of brands, and Abhi's own businesses make their images with it today. Across four of the agency's 2026 campaigns it took about 8 tries per usable photo, which is $0.27 to $1.69 in AI fees per keeper at published prices of $0.034 to $0.211 a render. Overs' guide to logos and trademarks in AI images covers placing your own logo from the real file and keeping other brands' marks out.

Overs is a sister product to AI Film Contests, from the same founder. You see the plan and an estimated cost before anything renders, and the free plan covers 40 photos a month on your own OpenRouter key, with no markup from Overs. Try Overs free at www.overs.studio on the product from your next cleared brief.