“Popular actor Vikram is now the brand Ambassador
for Parle-G.”
“Asin the new brand ambassador of Lux.”
“Ranbir Kappor is Nokia’s brand ambassador.”
“Shah Rukh Khan, new brand ambassador for Pepsodent.”
What role does a brand ambassador play
in branding of a product?
Brand Ambassadors are
like celebrities from outside world to lay men urging them towards the product;
they personify the values of the brand and create aspirations. There is no
denial that clever selection of brand ambassadors can really do wonders for
some brands. But what really are the success factors having brand ambassador?
In this age and day
product endorsement has taken many dimensions and one of these dimensions is
the person who leverages on the credibility of his personality and following
promote and providing greater visibility to a product, often with contracts by
going as high as millions of dollars. But doing so this servers a tool that
strengthens the company is communication strategy. These people are called
brand ambassadors.
Although the exposure
in this kind of marketing is less, the ambassadors deliver something much more
strong and incredible. A word of mouth which people trust more than other died
marketing techniques. A successful association with a brand ambassador sometime
translates into stronger brand awareness campaign than millions of rupees spent
on other marketing efforts such as advertising and promotion.
Now the question is why
to use a brand ambassador? What actually is the power that brand ambassador
exerts over the consumers to urge them?
One of the most
important factor that attracts consumer’s mind is psychological factors such as
motivation, perception, learning, believes and attitude. And these are the factors
that a brand ambassador influences.
These people have such
a strong impact of personalities that people sometime use brand
ambassador as a
tool for their product, like we seen the case of Junaid Jamshed clarifying Lays
issue when it was hit by the accusation of using haram contents in its
manufacturing.
Now companies need to
take keen care while appointing celebrity to endorse a product, in all respect
from thinking perspective of public to the requirement of the product. It is
essential that the attributes of a celebrity like ability, fame, sincerity etc.
Match the brand identity or the result mismatch will do more harm than good to
the brand image.
Like Wasim Akram
endorsing PEPSI and being diabetic at the same time and publicizing accu meters
is not fully appreciated. PEPSI must have reckoned the damage of this to
PEPSI’s image.
To me an ideal brand
ambassador should be a loyal user of brand by choice (not like Shah Rukh Khan
for Colgate), not by the opinion of others but by his own wisdom. He talks about
the benefits and disadvantages of the brand, he promotes the brand wherever he
can without knowing. He is the golden loyal customer which a brand should
strive to find. This is the sort of loyal customer, which if given incentives
to publicize a product would do an honest job.
This can be an example
of ideal, true hardworking brand ambassador. May be one day we will see
ordinary people will like us endorsing products like celebrities from a fantasy
world but what will be the point of marketing then!
