In this episode of the 90-Day Website Mastery Podcast, Jonny Ross and Pascal Fintoni tackle a critical question that could save your business thousands: Who actually owns your website after it's built? The discussion reveals the shocking truth about intellectual property rights in web design projects and provides a clear framework for protecting your business interests.
The episode also explores why the "Ostrich Effect" is destroying brand loyalty during tough economic times, examining research from System1's Jon Evans that exposes two dangerous marketing trends plaguing businesses today.
Finally, Jonny and Pascal share powerful automation tools, creative design resources, and actionable website improvements you can implement immediately.
If you're a business owner, marketing director, or anyone responsible for commissioning website projects, this episode could prevent costly mistakes and protect your digital assets.
The surprising truth: Design agencies often retain intellectual property rights unless specifically negotiated otherwise.
What to do: Have an upfront conversation about IP ownership and negotiate licensing agreements
Based on Jon Evans' research from System1 and insights from behavioral experts Roy Sutherland and Scott Galloway:
Two dangerous trends businesses fall into during economic uncertainty:
The Ostrich Effect: When people encounter guilt-inducing or distressing marketing, they metaphorically "bury their heads in the sand"
The solution: Create content that generates positive emotions, hope, and connection
Bardeen.ai (Jonny's pick):
Canva Vertical Video Templates (Pascal's pick):
Jonny's Call to Action — Cookie Consent Banner Optimisation:
Pascal's Call to Action — Establish Your AI Summary Baseline:
02:15 – You Ask, We Answer: IP ownership question from client
03:20 – The surprising truth about website IP retention by agencies
05:40 – What does IP ownership actually cover? Code, images, and data
07:25 – How to negotiate licensing agreements and future-proof your project
09:10 – Website Stories: Why the Ostrich Effect is killing your brand
11:30 – Two dangerous trends: Budget cuts and boring advertising
13:45 – The behavioural science behind consumer avoidance
15:20 – Creating positive emotions vs. guilt-inducing marketing
17:10 – Rory Sutherland's insights on standing out during tough times
19:35 – Website Engine Room: Bardeen.ai workflow automation
21:20 – Pascal's pick: Canva's impressive vertical video templates
23:15 – Repurposing social media content for your website
24:40 – Website Call to Action: Cookie consent banner optimisation
26:10 – Pascal's challenge: Establishing your AI summary baseline
28:30 – Searching across major AI platforms for your brand
30:15 – Episode recap and key takeaways
intellectual property web design, website ownership rights, IP licensing agreements, cookie consent banner optimisation, ostrich effect marketing, emotional branding strategies, workflow automation tools, vertical video templates, website compliance requirements, behavioural marketing psychology, content repurposing strategies, search engine AI platforms
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Jonny Ross is a leading digital marketing consultant and SEO strategist with decades of experience helping businesses transform their online presence.
Pascal Fintoni is a digital skills trainer and video marketing expert, known for making complex tech topics accessible and actionable.
Jonny Ross
-:Welcome. Thanks for joining us. Perhaps you're listening live right now on LinkedIn or YouTube or even Instagram, or perhaps you are joining the replay on the podcast afterwards. However you're here, welcome.
Jonny Ross
-:It is the 90 day website, Mastery Podcast, the perfect companion to our 90-day Website Mastery Program and our recently published book, Web Proud. It's our 43rd episode. We're excited to bring you even more valuable insights and practical advice to help you enhance your website's performance. Join us as we explore strategies to make your website work harder for you, reigniting your pride in your online presence.
Jonny Ross
-:I, of course, have my co-host with me, Pascal Fintoni. Welcome, Pascal.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Well, thank you very much. Thank you again for the introduction. And listen, I've had a bit of a peek through. I've cheated today.
Pascal Fintoni
-:I've read the show, not in advance. Usually, I take a bit of a surprise, but I was just intrigued about some of your selection across our four segments. But it's going to be a good one, as they say, where I come from.
Jonny Ross
-:Well, you mentioned the four segments. We have the You Ask, We Answer where we've had a question submitted from our community and we answer it for you. We've got Website Stories where we take an article or a podcast and we share our reactions and lessons from it that we've learned. We have the Website Engine Room where Pascal and myself share an app each or perhaps a piece of kit that helps you as a website manager or website content creator make your life easier and make you feel web proud.
Jonny Ross
-:And of course, Every piece of content, including this podcast, ends with a website call to action where we give you one change or adjustment that you should be making to your website right now. We practice what we preach. It's all about giving a call to action. Listen, let's start with you ask, we answer.
Pascal Fintoni
-:So this question was sent actually via email from one of my clients. They've been working on every branding, they've been working on a new project and so on. And this is what I got in my inbox, Johnny. I received a proposal from a new website design agency, and it clearly states that they will retain the IP following completion of the website design project.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Is that correct? Question mark. And what should I do? That's an interesting one, isn't it, Johnny?
Jonny Ross
-:Yeah, so I mean, I remember this from many years ago, most agencies would tie you in. So if you went and got a new website built, you'd only find out perhaps five years later when you want to move to a different agency or get someone else involved. And it turns out that they own your website. Now, I think there's less and less of that nowadays.
Jonny Ross
-:But there is a question over what do the agency or the contractor or the freelancer own? What do you own? What do they own? Whose is whose?
Jonny Ross
-:And I think it's so important to be really clear right from the start who owns what and to make sure that you don't leave yourself vulnerable in a position where the business doesn't own what you believe you've bought. So it's a very interesting area that absolutely needs some attention.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Yeah, and listen, I understand that, you know, when you work on a new website project, there's far more exciting stuff to be talking about and planning than the IP. But interestingly, you know, when you look into it, there is actually no legal kind of foundation for that, you know, it is more of the contractual arrangements, I think, to begin with. anyone shouldn't shouldn't be confusing the desire for what is the agency to return the IP to a legal right that they have it is a contract arrangement and the other thing therefore that you want to do which i agree with you johnny is almost have the simple conversation whereby, do you wish to retain the IP?
Pascal Fintoni
-:And if so, why? And what does it cover? Because suddenly, if you are in the business of commissioning work, what this cannot contain is for the agency to retain the IP on the design element, on everything that is unique to your business. But there may be situations where they are gifting you, the business owner, a bit of code or a very very clever way in which they've put together maybe the contact form or any form of layout and so on that they feel is their invention and they want to
Pascal Fintoni
-:be able to retain that so that they can apply that clever solution to other projects.
Jonny Ross
-:Yeah, and you're absolutely right, because what does happen is you end up paying for something that's been built, but they then go and resell it. And so there's a number of different angles to consider when you start a project with anyone really, in terms of who owns the rights. And so I think it's a really important part. But as I said, you know, without sort of repeating myself, the biggest thing I've seen is where people or business owners suddenly realized that they don't even own their own website.
Pascal Fintoni
-:And
Jonny Ross
-:that, you know, could be a fundamental issue at some stage. So it's, it's all about having a contract, it's about understanding what's in the contract. And it's about not just signing it, You know without reading it first i'm really understanding and you lastly on this point it brings into the question of stock imagery so if you're commissioning an agency to do some work and they using perhaps even stock video footage or stock image imagery.
Jonny Ross
-:who owns it, but more importantly, have they got the license to use it? And, you know, if not, who's going to be in trouble in the future. So even just things like that, who owns the, the images have all the licenses in place. Um, so really important to take all this on board.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Yeah. And so for me, you know, there was two questions in one, is that correct? And what should I do? So it's not correct that the design agency will retain the entirety of the IP, that is not correct.
Pascal Fintoni
-:But there could be some, like I said, that they are part of their invention. And really, the, like you said, times have moved on, Johnny, and typically what the agency will do is grant you a license in perpetuity to use that bit of the code or the very, very clever solution they've come up with for their previous clients. So in a way, what you're benefiting sometimes is what they've been able to do in previous projects. So in terms of what you should do is have that conversation.
Pascal Fintoni
-:And for me, really, I see almost a very civil conversation around two columns, you know, the IP retained by the agency, the IP that are created, that are retained. And then this negotiation for a license in perpetuity, because what you want to be able to do is future proof your design. project, it may well be that you want to move on because you've outgrown this and the services, or quite simply, the agency itself will move on, you know, and, and what you don't want to be stuck with lines of code, or like I said, some some plugins or some key elements in there that you don't have the rights to use.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Yeah
Jonny Ross
-:and in fact even taking it further around perhaps there's been part of the project is buying data and again who owns the data? How can that be used again afterwards? What's the licensing on the data? Really good question.
Jonny Ross
-:Thanks for introducing that Pascal and that was our first segment. Let's move to our next one which is website stories.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Now for episode 43, I've chosen an article which I think is perfect for the times that we live in. So this article was written by John Evans. He's the chief customer officer for System One, a great company that do amazing work on audience insight advertising and more. And the title, I must confess, was very intriguing to me.
Pascal Fintoni
-:So it was as follows. Why the ostrich effect is killing your brand. And I have to confess, I was thinking, I'm not sure, actually, I know what the ostrich effect is. I know what the image looks like.
Pascal Fintoni
-:But what would it be killing your brand? And what John Evans is doing is twofold, using one of my favorite form of content marketing, which is curating and reacting to information out there. And what John is doing is looking at two trends that are essentially a reaction when times are tough. So what we're going through all of us, because ultimately, none of our businesses are operating in the silo.
Pascal Fintoni
-:So understandably, you know, we're going through, you know, this idea of tariffs going on out there. We're having some inattention globally. We're having big, massive changes when it comes to AI and behavior online. There's all sort of thing going on.
Pascal Fintoni
-:And what John Evans is looking at is two reactions. I would say trends is probably a strong word, which is number one, typically organization will be cutting their marketing budgets when times are difficult. Or number two, which is in its own way little just as bad, is opting for short-term sales-driven tactics that are often dull and boring. And by reacting to podcast articles and things, I would recommend people to follow the hyperlink in the show notes to find out more about his reflection.
Pascal Fintoni
-:What he's really saying is, we have all the evidence that we need to know that this doesn't work, this is very, very unwise. And typically, what you'll find when times are tough, people reduce budgets and or they then go for some kind of very factual form of marketing that will bore consumers into inaction. And actually, I think it's quite interesting. So what is this ostrich effect?
Pascal Fintoni
-:This is what happens. So when a brand moves into advertising, and I would say as far as pushing it to content marketing, so this is a warning for website owners and content creators. When things are difficult, you cut budgets, you go for short-term tactics that don't work, then because it doesn't work, you go for what's called the guilt inducing form of marketing. You're almost trying to coerce and shame people in the fact that they're not taking action.
Pascal Fintoni
-:When in fact, when times are tough, what you want to do is go for positive emotions. So the warning really is when it comes to your content marketing and your advertising, find ways to capture attention that really brings an element of positivity and hope, as opposed to the other way. And it seems that it's, you know, those reactions are, let's cut the budget and let's go for that kind of factual form of marketing. It's just not working.
Pascal Fintoni
-:And people that insist and insist, and the damage to their brand, it can be, you know, long lasting.
Jonny Ross
-:I mean, the first thing to say from my point of view is that the podcast had Roy Sutherland on, who I absolutely love and highly recommend reading his book. It's all about behavioral science and marketing and really tapping into the human brain and emotions, et cetera. And that's exactly what this is about as well. Like Pascal said, most people reduce spending when times are tough, but actually, that's your biggest opportunity.
Jonny Ross
-:And what you tend to find is sometimes media can be cheaper at those times when there's when there's global disasters, for example, what you find is actually there's, you know, the, the, the ability of taking share of voice becomes much higher. and media becomes cheaper and you've got the ability to stand out. And I think you should always be considering how you can turn negatives into positives and sort of be the light in those dark times and get consumers to gravitate to you, whether that be businesses or consumers. And yeah, Pascal, you mentioned something there about boring ads as well.
Jonny Ross
-:I mean, boring ads just waste money. being neutral gives no emotion and gives absolutely no action so you don't stand out or be controversial for the sake of it. But if you can make something stand out or make something controversial that ties in well to the story. then that's when you create that emotion, and that's when people start taking action.
Jonny Ross
-:Emotions ultimately drive profit. So whether it be fun or human stories, that features, sorry, that beats standard neutral content every single time. And perhaps one thing I like that Rory says is ring fencing, perhaps 10 or 15% of your budget to have a play and to try and test different things. Uh, I like the idea of that where, you know, you sort of dabble in different things and you do that test and try and you learn very quickly, you fail very quickly.
Jonny Ross
-:But what you, what you start identifying is which are the channels that are working, which is the content that's, that's working. Um, and then double down on the things that are working.
Pascal Fintoni
-:I think for me, it's back to this idea of you're advertising, you're content marketing, all the form of communication out there to build trust and likability. And what is not wise, therefore, is to reduce the amount of connection points to begin with, or to hijack this connection point into a kind of very short-termist way of doing things. And the whole article, the reference to the podcast, as you mentioned, and more, is all about warning people that actually that kind of seesaw effect in communication and connection can be very damaging. So whilst times are tough, and maybe indeed consumer spending will be reduced, what you don't want to do is become silent, that's the extreme, or to be overbearing, you need to find that just middle ground.
Pascal Fintoni
-:The actual middle ground for me, which is implicit in the article, is around storytelling and making connections. And I like this idea as well, in the article it talks about depiction of real-life scenarios, but also a strong sense of place. And a thing that is often lacking in some of the communication. When the sense of urgency best selling when times are tough because very products and service specific and within that you missed the connection and it's so much harder to rebuild the connection after a period of time where you gone silent or you change the tonality of your communication
Pascal Fintoni
-:disengage because you trying to make them feel guilty they then do the ostrich effect of, well, I'll ignore it, I'll turn my attention away from your message, and then you've got double the work once things start to pick up again to reclaim that trust and likeability.
Jonny Ross
-:Yeah. It's a lot easier to bury your head in the sand. Simple as that. The book that I was talking about is alchemy, by the way, uh, highly recommend it.
Jonny Ross
-:It, you know, if, if you, uh, want a bit of inspiration in marketing, go and read Robbie Sutherland's alchemy book. But yeah, let's not allow your, uh, target audience, your consumers, your businesses, whoever you're selling to. Let's not allow them to bury their head in the sand and let's make sure that they have you on their radar. A great topic, Pascal.
Jonny Ross
-:Let's move to our next segment, which is the website engine room.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Then the seventh of the children and I represent two apps that can make life easier as a content creator and web manager. It's always a surprise. So Johnny, what is your selection for the website engine room?
Jonny Ross
-:Yeah, this one is all about automation. So, you know, we talk a lot about AI, we talk a lot about automation. There's a tool that's worth having a play with, which is called Bardeen.ai. All of the things that we mentioned, we always put in to the show notes, but this is an AI powered tool for workflow automation.
Jonny Ross
-:i'm so for example it works within the browser so you can literally right click on a table that's on someone's website and click send to sheets and it puts the whole thing into for example notion or google sheet just in one simple click. You can automate rank checking for keywords. You can automate bulk uploads of content, lots and lots of different things, but just, you know, there's so many examples actually, but have a play bardeen.ai. And, and it really just speeds things up.
Jonny Ross
-:It's a bit like finding quick keys on your keyboard instead of having to use your mouse. And, and you'd be amazed at some of the automation that you can set up.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Oh, nice. I mean, I always like to do that as well, by starting with pen and paper, you know, imagine the workflow first, and then you could work on platform like Boundeen, as opposed to the other way. So my selection actually was inspired by a conversation I'm having with clients at the moment, where, as ever, despite best effort on my part, they do spend more time on social media than they do on their website. You know, I get it.
Pascal Fintoni
-:I get it. I understand the appeal of social media and the appeal of getting reactions, comments, likes, and so on. And my customers, Johnny, are becoming braver and braver now in regard to video. So they're doing a lot of video on social media.
Pascal Fintoni
-:They're doing a lot of those vertical videos in particular. And I said to them, well, minimum, you should repurpose that social media content for your website. If you want me to be only half annoyed with you, and I mean this in the kindest possible way, and you're not putting content on the website, bringing more effect in social media, at least repurpose the social media content for the website. And I said, when it comes to your videos, we need to create a longer story.
Pascal Fintoni
-:So if we look back at the fortnight that had just gone, what video content could you repurpose to a single story? And I've rediscovered that not Canva itself, which is a platform I'm presenting, but the templates offered by Canva And I would encourage everybody to actually go back to Canva, and I've put the link in the show notes, and look at the social media templates, in particular for vertical videos. They are truly, truly impressive, and clearly they've been refreshed and reset.
Pascal Fintoni
-:We are all creatures of habit. We may have our kind of go-tos on Canva. So as a kind of, you know, call to action, almost of sort, go back, but when it comes to the tech for today, Canva's vertical video templates are impressive, really, really good, and will allow you to repurpose all the video content for your website.
Jonny Ross
-:Yeah, I mean, I just love Canva full stop. It really is a game changer. And you hit the nail on the head because people are constantly adding templates to it all the time. And so it doesn't become difficult to stay on trend and to stay up to date because you find that all the latest trends are in there.
Jonny Ross
-:And I love the idea of repurposing video, especially from your background, Pascal.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Well, quite. Yeah. And this back to that, you know, I'll say I work with McAllister preferences. So if the favor spending quite a bit of time on LinkedIn, Facebook, and all the others that has used that, and let's make sure that on the weekly for likely monthly basis, we repurposed that amazing social media content.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Bear in mind that if you think about, you know, the way the algorithm are working, only a fraction of your network will see it anyway. So can we recap and repurpose that content for those who've missed it?
Jonny Ross
-:Yeah.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Really important.
Jonny Ross
-:Let's move on to our final segment, which is the website call to action.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Now, this is about the one change, the one adjustment you should be making right now on your website to make it work harder for you. Johnny, what is your recommendation?
Jonny Ross
-:Well, I'm going to talk about something quite boring, I'm afraid. I'm going to talk about the cookie consent banner. It's a requirement that not every business is following. If you do any Google ads or Bing ads, they are forcing you to have this in place now for you to be able to continue advertising.
Jonny Ross
-:And it's about consent. But it's about making sure that you are using something in a way that isn't too intrusive, that maintains compliance without sort of disrupting the user experience. And something that ideally people are going to click that allow button as well, because the more data you can get about your user and about the website, the better. So it's about having something that doesn't feel too intrusive, but at the same time, people are going to click the allow button.
Jonny Ross
-:So I guess what I'm trying to say is, and I haven't got the answer that I'm going to give on this podcast right now, but what I'm trying to get you to do is to think creatively about how that cookie consent banner could display. Is it branded? Is it got your colors even? Has it got, you know, could you think about the wording and move away from the sort of very standard compliance wording, which is, you know, do you accept cookies, et cetera.
Jonny Ross
-:But actually just turn it into your own brand language and be quite clever with it. and perhaps even tell a story on there. So I think the first thing is make sure you've got cookie consent banner full stop, make sure it's compliant and find a way to, whilst not being too intrusive, get people to click that allow button because that then gives you so much more data into, for example, Google Analytics and allows you to continue advertising on Bing and Google Ads.
Jonny Ross
-:So clear cookie consent banner is my website call to action for this podcast.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Love it. And, you know, your kind of call out for creativity, I think this is what it's all about, you know, in terms of the website work that we do. I've seen lovely examples where, you know, the banner will appear, but actually it's been done in such a witty way where there's half a cookie eaten with a bit of crumbs, and there's a bit of, you know, dialogue like this, there's maybe the business mascot there for you. So there's so many different ways in which you can be compliant.
Pascal Fintoni
-:but then necessarily bear in mind that our previous comment on the content that we reviewed, either being dull or just almost like doing the same as everybody else. I always do a lot of work on even the contact us form, what can you do to reclaim that space? That typically is very, very unappealing. I want to continue therefore on this idea of creativity and with a phase one call to action.
Pascal Fintoni
-:So the next step is that I want to reveal our face. We are a week away from, uh, at the time of recording going live from the Google I O conference, you know, that three day. kind of Uber conference from Google, where they reveal all about their future plans. And I have no doubt AI is going to be part of it, but also AI-powered search engine results.
Pascal Fintoni
-:So what I want people to do is go through their favorite search engines. I don't think there are that many left anymore. So it'd be Google, Yahoo, and Bing. go through the major AI platform, CharityPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Meta, Clojure, all of those.
Pascal Fintoni
-:I want you to essentially search for your business name and search for your key employees. And I just want to record what is on display. I call this your baseline. And people are smart.
Pascal Fintoni
-:Anyway, what I'm doing here is I want to find a way for us to take control of those AI summaries. Because ultimately, for all they are, very clever, maybe a little daunting, Summarize what's already out there. You know, they can't invent information, although I'm sure they will try when there's very little information. So creating the baseline as of today of what those search engines and AI platforms say about your business and say about you, the individual, is very, very important because in phase two, we'll be looking at how we can improve.
Pascal Fintoni
-:those AI summaries. But step one, what are those AI summaries saying about your business and key employees, key customer facing employees right now? Let's understand this and we can use our imagination and being creative about improving the appeal and impact of those AI summaries.
Jonny Ross
-:There's not many search engines left. I think you missed DuckDuckGo though. I did. There might be a few people using that.
Jonny Ross
-:I like the idea. That's a very clever way to really get a concise idea of what's out there and to start building on that, yeah, and recording it as your baseline. I like that a lot. Another great episode.
Jonny Ross
-:We've talked about when you start a new project. You've just started a new project with a web agency, perhaps. You think of a new design project or a new website build. And you've not really thought about who owns what the IP, you need to check the intellectual property.
Jonny Ross
-:You need to check. Who owns what, what can be other any licenses, uh, have stock images being bought? Do you own the website? Do you own the content management system?
Jonny Ross
-:And if not, what are the impacts of that? Really important. We talked about the ostrich effect. Uh, John Evans had been talking about a podcast, uh, and not allowing your customers to bury their head in the sand and stop listening to you.
Jonny Ross
-:Make it emotional because emotion creates action. Uh, and, uh, you know, double down on things that are working and try and find ways to stand out because being neutral is not going to achieve anything, I'm afraid. Pascal mentioned Canva templates, a great way to turn vertical videos into reels and stories and LinkedIn messages. I talked about Bardeen, the workflow automation app, well worth a check, how it can help on browser actions that are repetitive.
Jonny Ross
-:And of course we finished with the website call to action. I talked about the clear cookie consent banner and Pascal talked about going through all the search engines and major AI platforms to check what it summarizes against your business name and your key employees. We've packed a lot in Pascal.
Pascal Fintoni
-:We always do. I'm always surprised that we can manage to do it within the time that we allow ourselves. This is our short form content. This is more so like us to keep things short and sharp.
Pascal Fintoni
-:But actually, it's a good discipline. It allows us to give you a lot of different value. And of course, if I may, if you find the call structure interesting, intriguing, if you'd like to know more about the way in which you can improve your website, I would highly recommend a book called WebProud. We're getting lots of feedback still, and people are still thanking us for all the work we put into capturing decades of experience in launching website projects, running websites afterwards, and also migrating to bigger destinations as well.
Pascal Fintoni
-:So yeah, make sure that you consult the book and go into our official website as well, because we've got extra resources in there as well.
Jonny Ross
-:For sure, yeah. You head over to amazon.com or .co.uk and have a look for WebProud. You'll find our book there. Listen, that is a wrap for episode 43 of the 90 Day Website Mastery Podcast, your audio companion to the 90 Day Website Mastery Program.
Jonny Ross
-:Thank you for joining us, whether it's been live or whether it's been on the replay, whether it's been audio or video. We are so glad that you've been here. For more information, visit 90daymarketingmastery.com, where you can book a discovery call with either myself or Pascal. It's goodbye for now.
Jonny Ross
-:We'll leave you with a fun video and audio montage. to enjoy whilst you review your notes and action plan. We'll speak to you all soon. Thanks for joining us.
Jonny Ross
-:Take care, look after yourselves.