When you start talking about brand ambassadors, people usually think of something like this:
Doing my internship at Spacemarket I learnt that a brand ambassador can come from any side of the business. The core quality of a brand ambassador is that they must embody the image, identity and values of the brand. they must also be a spokesperson for the brand.
Our main project, MANY, did not have the money to pay a brand ambassador to do these things and promote their brand however, they did have a brand ambassador. The Project Manager slipped into the role because she had so much passion for the project.
Every day people were coming in to the store just to see her. She would speak about the project and what it meant to Fremantle. This, a lot of the time, even resulted in people wanting to be a part of the project. She was also in charge of most of the social media posts and therefore communicated with publics through this medium.
Find the link here to "12 Reasons You Need Brand Ambassadors." This article talks about how brand ambassadors humanise your brand and provide a more credible source of information in comparison to traditional advertising.
The reason I find this all so interesting is because it just goes to show that small brands do not need a lot of money to effectively communicate with they publics. A passionate and hard work staff can go a long way. I learnt that sometimes you need to inspire people within your business in order to inspire your target audience.
Next time you are looking where to spend your Marketing and PR budget maybe think about extra training for your staff. Maybe look at putting on a social event for your staff. Getting your staff involved in the business more can help result in them becoming brand ambassadors. This will be an invaluable asset to your business.
Thanks for reading.
Best,
Gemma
2 comments:
Hi Gemma,
I couldn't agree more with your blog post. We are living in a digital era in which public relations and marketing agencies are spending huge amounts of money on ambassadors based on the amount of followers they have, even though they might not have ant personal interest/ passion about the brand. I believe PR representatives should definitely dedicate more time in choosing apprpriate ambassadors and making sure they align with the brand and core values of the client, as you mentioned.
I also liked how you mentioned that staff can unknowingly act as ambassadors of an organisation, on the basis they are passionate. Businesses often fail to realise this, which just proves how important training and recruitment is for all aspects of a business.
Kayla.
Hi Gemma,
Coming from an internship at an organisation that is in the opposite boat to yours, a rather large organisation but one that lacks the motivation and passion of the smaller businesses. We also worked on a similar project for my department (community relations) and the different people we had to gain approval from was astounding (we had to gain approval from 3-4 different departments/people from memory). But it goes to show how passion can trump resources if used effectively.
As for staff being ambassadors, I never really thought about that as I strolled around Fremantle on my breaks but it goes to show how important even the little things are to an organisation.
Cheers for the insight and all the best, Lewis.
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