Did You Know That Brand Ambassadors Are Really Important?

Definition of Brand Ambassador

Brand Ambassadors: who or what are they?

A Brand Ambassador, as the name suggests is a Endorser of a Brand. An ambassador is a representative of the Brand. For example Sachin Tendulkar for Reynolds company, ranbir kapoor for lays product. There would have been more but they weren’t able to leave an imprint on our minds. Most probably, it did, on our parents’ and relatives’ mindset, no wonder we always got the same products in our house.

WHY BRAND AMBASSADORS ?

There is a management saying that, when the product is good, you no longer have to be a very good marketer.

But the saying is soon becoming outdated. There are many product categories and many brands flooded in the market in each category. Hence attributes like quality, value for money alone doesn’t count. There has to be an effective media to make the product reach towards the customer. The media here can be termed as the celebrity who endorses the product.

When a product is being endorsed by a famous celebrity then it will result in better brand recall and better brand awareness. People also start associating their status symbol to that of the product that they consume and the celebrity associated with it. Hence in many ways the company can capitalize on celebrity endorsement. That is the reason why companies shell out millions to promote their product with the celebrities.

ROLE OF BRAND AMBASSADORS

With the passage of time when the liberalization took place in the 1990s, we saw a spate of companies flowing into the country with a wide range of products for the consumer. These companies didn’t want their products to fail in the market and so they had very attractive and enticing ad campaigns. But the need for more profits and market share made them spend more and more on their advertisements. There were virtual characters for some brands (Fido for 7Up), but for some they had to rope in household names to connect with the consumer and that made the companies reach out their arms to Bollywood for influential actors and actresses (Salman Khan for Pepsi) and so on. Depending on the ad campaigns that were created there were couples of ambassadors who worked wonders for a brand but couldn’t revive their magic when it came to other brands.

Reasons why you need a brand ambassador

Having ambassadors is one way to ensure that customers get a response in a timely manner.

In a brand ambassador model, customers have one point person to guide them through the process. From the first signs of interest through closing the sale, a customer need only reach out to the ambassador.

An ambassador is one employee who is able to handle the jobs traditionally done by the salesperson, the marketing person and the customer support person.

The ambassador, in the marketing role, is also looking for ways to promote the last customer success.

Replacing a traditional sales force with ambassadors may be just the thing that sets you apart from the competition and increases your bottom line.

BY RAJ RIJHWANI