1,270
28
Essay, 5 pages (1300 words)

Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay

Increase or protect your business reputation at an extremely low cost compared to traditional advertising marketing and PR. Your brand ambassadors become a strong independent force to provide third party validation of your brand.

Increase your sales team’s reach and revenues, without increasing your headcount by enabling word of mouth via your brand advocates. They could be active promoters of your brand on various social channels such as Twitter, Face book, blogs, YouTube or even speakers at traditional events etc.

Reduce customer support costs. Brand Ambassadors are typically extremely outgoing and helpful in supporting other customers like themselves via posting replies to queries on forums or writing how to articles or detailed reviews of your products compared to the competition etc.

Innovation – Product research and development can be a fairly expensive activity. Your brand advocates and brand ambassadors prove to be an excellent at suggesting ways in which your existing product can improve or even new product ideas. This can prove to be an extremely cost effective research source.

The 5th and most important reason build lasting relationships with empowered customers: Most business owners, marketers would agree that building a strong relationship with customers is important. A brand ambassador or advocate program enables you to systematically develop deep relationships with your customers, enabling them to feel empowered and part of your team.

Depending on business objectives you’d need to evolve your brand ambassador program. Taj Mahal’s first brand ambassador, Ustaad Zakir Hussain, is a symbol of excellence in the field of music. Ustaad through his rigour, perfection and talent exemplifies the greatness of Taj Mahal.

The brand’s current ambassador, Saif Ali Khan, with his sophistication, modernity and refinement compliments the world of Taj Mahal.

Signing up stars for endorsements is a time-tested strategy and has been effectively used by some of the top brands in the world including Nike and Pepsi. In India too, HLL has used Hindi film stars to endorse their beauty soap Lux since the fifties. Vimal, Thums Up, Gwalior and Dinesh are some of the other brands that used star-appeal in the early days of mass advertising.

Marketers believe that star endorsements have several benefits, key among them being building credibility, fostering trust and drawing attention or any or all of which can translate into higher brand sales.

There are many cases where you need to use the celebrity to break out of a category clutter. At times celebrity endorsement is used to build credibility to the brand offer. Most experts concur that, when used judiciously, celebrity endorsements can be an effective strategy. According to Mohammed Khan, Chairman of Enterprise Nexus, “ Using a celebrity by itself is not a bad idea provided it is done intelligently.” And there are many examples of good and bad use of celebrities.

Take Amitabh Bachchan, who has been used by some companies like Parker Pens and ICICI Home Loans remarkably well while some others have been unable to exploit his Big B status too well. Shah Rukh Khan’s endorsement of Hyundai i10 too seems to have worked well. Cricketers like Rahul Dravid for Castrol in an attempt to break out of the clutter, as well as have an image rub off of ‘ dependability’ on to the brand.

Shahrukh Khan changed the fortune of Dish Tv after he started endorsing it

Nikhil Chinnapa is one the style icons ruling the hearts of youth.

There is no doubt that celebrity advertising has its benefits –

The four Qs:

Quick saliency: It gets cut through because of the star and his attention getting value. Nerolac has ensured high saliency for its brand with the inclusion of Amitabh Bachchan in its advertising.

Quick connect: There needs to be no insight but the communication connects because the star connects. Sachin Tendulkar & Shah Rukh Khan ensure an easy connect for Pepsi with the youth.

Quick shorthand for brand values: The right star can actually telegraph a brand message fast without elaborate story telling. Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar seem to have done that successfully for Boost in the early ’90s. And helped to differentiate it in the malted beverages market.

Quick means of brand differentiation: In a category where no brand is using a celebrity, the first that picks one up could use it to differentiate itself in the market. Boost did it in the malted beverage category.

And Preity Zinta does all the above four for Perk — connecting with the youth and reinforcing the brand’s youthful, spontaneous, energetic values.

Successful Celebrity Endorsements for a Brand – An Indian Perspective:

The latter part of the ’80s saw the burgeoning of a new trend in India – brands started being endorsed by celebrities. Hindi film and TV stars as well as sports-persons were roped in to endorse prominent brands. Advertisements featuring stars like Tabassum (Prestige Pressure Cooker), Jalal Agha (Pan Parag), Kapil Dev (Palmolive Shaving Cream) and Sunil Gavaskar (Dinesh Suitings) became common. Of course, probably the first ad to cash in on star power in a strategic, long-term, mission statement kind of way was for Lux soap, a brand which has, perhaps as a result of this, been among the top three in the country for much of its life-time.

In recent times, we had the Shah Rukh-Santro campaign with the objective of creating awareness about an unknown Korean brand in the Indian market, Hyundai. The objective was to garner faster brand recognition, association and emotional unity with the target group. Star power in

India can be gauged by the successful endorsement done by Sharukh for three brands- Pepsi, Clinic All Clear and Santro. Similarly, when S. Kumar’s used Hrithik Roshan, then the hottest advertising icon for their launch advertising for Tamarind, they reckoned they spent 40-50 per cent less on media due to the sheer impact of using Hrithik. Ad recall was as high as 70 per cent, and even the normally conservative trade got interested.

Confining to India, it would not be presumptuous to state that celebrity endorsements can positively effect the overall brand. We have numerous examples exemplifying this claim. A standard example here is Coke, which, till recently, internationally didn’t use stars at all – in fact, India was a first for them. The result was a ubiquitously appealing Aamir cheekily stating ‘ thanda matlab coca cola’. The recall value for Nakshatra advertising is only due to the sensuous Aishwarya. The Parker brand of pen, which by itself commands equity, used Amitabh Bachchan to revitalize the brand in India. According to Pooja Jain, Director, Luxor Writing Instruments Ltd. (LWIL), post-Bachchan Parker’s sales have increased by about 30 per cent.

India is one country which has always idolized the species of the celluloid world. Therefore, it makes tremendous sense for a brand to procure a celebrity for its endorsement. In India, there is an exponential potential for a celebrity endorsement to be perceived as genuinely relevant, thereby, motivating consumers to go in for the product – this would especially prove true if the endorser and the category are a natural lifestyle fit (sports-persons and foot-wear, Kapil-Sachin and Boost, film stars and beauty products, Katrina Kaif and Lux).

Examples:

PEPSI: YOUNGISTAN MERI JAAN

Pepsi has always tried to tap the young segment of India through their promotions. Beginning from the famous “ Ahaa” series of ads to the “ Yah Dil Mange More” to today’s “ Youngistan Meri Jann”, Pepsi has always made ads to attract the youth. They have always chosen the young stars, may not be established, as a face of young India. So the main reason of using Dhoni is same in case of the latest Youngistan Meri Jann ads.

There’s no better example in the Indian industry than Amitabh Bachchan who endorses ICICI Bank, Cadbury, Versa, Dabur, Rin, Parker Pens, Pepsi, Nerolac Paints and many more.

“ Sharukh Mayur Khan” is how this product came to be known, Shahrukh brought to the product his persona of high class lifestyle, giving the consumer the belief to aspire and good clothing a sure way to reflect the aspiration. The ad shows a great fit between what the product stands for, what the consumer expects and what the celebrity means to the consumer

Thank's for Your Vote!
Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay. Page 1
Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay. Page 2
Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay. Page 3
Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay. Page 4
Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay. Page 5
Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay. Page 6
Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay. Page 7

This work, titled "Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay" was written and willingly shared by a fellow student. This sample can be utilized as a research and reference resource to aid in the writing of your own work. Any use of the work that does not include an appropriate citation is banned.

If you are the owner of this work and don’t want it to be published on AssignBuster, request its removal.

Request Removal
Cite this Essay

References

AssignBuster. (2022) 'Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay'. 28 September.

Reference

AssignBuster. (2022, September 28). Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay. Retrieved from https://assignbuster.com/why-businesses-build-a-brand-ambassador-marketing-essay/

References

AssignBuster. 2022. "Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay." September 28, 2022. https://assignbuster.com/why-businesses-build-a-brand-ambassador-marketing-essay/.

1. AssignBuster. "Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay." September 28, 2022. https://assignbuster.com/why-businesses-build-a-brand-ambassador-marketing-essay/.


Bibliography


AssignBuster. "Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay." September 28, 2022. https://assignbuster.com/why-businesses-build-a-brand-ambassador-marketing-essay/.

Work Cited

"Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay." AssignBuster, 28 Sept. 2022, assignbuster.com/why-businesses-build-a-brand-ambassador-marketing-essay/.

Get in Touch

Please, let us know if you have any ideas on improving Why businesses build a brand ambassador marketing essay, or our service. We will be happy to hear what you think: [email protected]