What is a brand ambassador ?
A brand ambassodor is a person ,celebrity ,a known person or simply a person who promotes a brand.Normally brand ambassadors are people who are famous and have large fan following.
We all know whats a brand ambassador.Daily we see Dhoni feauturing in n number of ads or shahrukh selling a lot many things.Apna Sachin Aila!!!!
So many of them Fim Stars,Cricketers,players,Rakhi Sawants(also) and many others feature in number of ads.A brand ambassador is chosen to give a product a face,to make people associate the brand with the celebrity.
Its a nice technique.Shahrukh Khan is liked by a lot,Sachin is adulated by millions.Associating your brand with him is great.But these days a new funny thing is happening.
I will explain it with an example.
Take Shahrukh Khan who is brand ambassador of Airtel(he is rt?),He has been appearing in all Airtel ads from long time.He had become the face of Airtel along with Rehmans Tune.Now Airtel launches Airtel TV.The brand is still same and they launch this new Product.
if its Airtel TV is should have quite a lot attributes common with the phone service.by attributes i mean the brand attributes(service quality,sales service , feel and all).So Airtel is the main thing which would lead ppl to buy this DTH.
Now what happens in the ad world,Airtel mobile has Shahrukh Khan as its face telling the world that its the best mobile operator.
In the TV world Airtel as a brand has SRK standing against them with an another brand Dish TV and telling the world
‘e eeee eee Wish kkkkaarro to DISH kkkaro aeae ae hmmmm!’
It means SRK is not at all promoting Airtel as a brand instead is promoting DISH against it.
Matlab mobile lo airtel ka but TV nahin agar tum SRK fan ho!!!
Brand loyalty ki baatein karte hain,Apne brand ambassador emin to loyalty hai nahin.
Same is with Zaheer Khan
Mobile service IDEA
DTH Airtel
Lets discuss DHONI now or MSD whatever He is promoting all the products you can think of buying.
there is a term known as general subsitute.it means all the products can be subsitutes of each other.All the products fight for your disposable income.Like if you have 50 bucks ,you can either buy Pepsi and lays or Dabur Chyawanprash or Boost and Milk .
The problem is now Dhoni is promoting all.(arey 50 rs mein to AIRCEL ka recharge bhi aa jayega).If you are a diehard Dhoni fan and trust what he says to kya loge.
loge vahi jo apna dil karega to brand ambassador ne karna kya hai !!!
Seedhi baat! No bakwaas!! arey ye to sprite ka tagline hai Sprite se yaad aaya,Seedhi baat karne vaali sprite has done a lot of twists and turns in brand ambassadorship(i dont know whether this word exists or not!).SRK (again) and Ishant Sharma chup chap PEPSI bech rahe the Sprite came along signed KKR(hhahaha Kolkata Knight Riders!!!).SRK (who was dumped by Pepsi) and Ishant Sharma went along happily with SPRITE.SRK who was selling PEPSI from ages suddenly jumped to SPRITE for his team or may be more money.
When Brand ambassadors are themselves not loyal so what loyalty would they induce through ads.
So apni akal lagao,Jo dil kare vo karo! Seedhi Baat No bakwaas!!!!!
here ends my brand ambassador dilemma
Comments Please !!!
Well good observations.. Many times such strategy – the one adopted by Airtel (my annadaata
) is an intentional one and is termed as Ambush Marketing.. What Airtel does this way is takes some credit away from Dish TV as they themself compete it with their product Digital TV. Now consider this, Sehwag is brand ambassador for Pepsi but Coke sponsored the entire team – Delhi Daredevils for IPL-2. So Sehwag being the captain is forced to attend press conferences and do PR exercise wearing Coca Cola TShirts.. Huh,, Poor Guy.. But Coke in this way nicely manages to take the entire credit Pepsi gained in promoting Sehwag as their ambassador..
Sehwag good example i shud have added it in the blog itself
but how good is it god knows?
hmm..interesting observation.. to a large extent i buy your argument, but if as a corporate I want to launch a product.. The first step for me, is to make sure it is noticed amongst the masses.. So i’d def sign a SRK or an MSD irrespective what other brands they are promoting and it does help..I was jus wondering on the same lines as to how many of our dear customers wld’ve bought a Dish TV coz of SRK.. but surely Dish TV got ‘noticed’ coz of him.. and now the customer before purchasing evaluates 2-3 options where Dish TV is one amongst them.. and SRK’s job is done wit it!
hmm i agree that Dish TV got noticed thru SRK even i agree to it but how many noticed that SRK kya kar raha hai 1 taraf AIRTEL mobile doosri taraf Dish TV against Airtel
as a corporate i shud think that kahin brand conflict na ho jaye
but in case of airtel even i agree that Airtel were caught on wrong foot atleast they can find a new face for AIRTEL as a brand as such liek they have rehman Saif kareena why not have a common face for AIrtel and range of products (sorry SRK )
[...] of these stars, are not loyal to the brands they potray, (read themanmeetsabharwalblog for [...]
A PERSON named S.Gurcharan Singh Galib WAS IN CONGESS for 25 years, when he learnt tht some body
else Mr Tiwari is going to get congress ticket for MP, HE JOINED AKALI payty got the ticket and lost to tiwari bwcause wherever he went for convessing, his tongue slipped, and at most of places he said please vote for congress.After all he was brand abassdor for congress in ludhiana for 25 years
Great example !! I wish SRK doesnt go in a Sprite event and says Ye Pyass hai Badi or Ye dil maange more!!
I dont know per say. things are just so commercialised rite now.
and consumers also tend to associate the person with not only the brancd but also the product.
Airtel rite now is growing in the DTH segment, whereas as a mobile network it is well established.
it is like brand mapping… associate SRK with Airtel with Mobile… as i understand it…
P.S: the new look of your blog is very classy… professional better than the previous look…
Great observation Manmeete! Now I must say that Manmeet observes things which otherwise are almost non-existent for non-starters like us. Anyway now if I have developed some interest in all this branding, advertising & marketing gyan, half of it because of our Manmeet ,So many thanks Manmeet for your really insightful & interesting blogs.
Now coming back to the questions that the article raised. I believe many a times it is better to have different brand ambassador for different products from the same company. Because a brand ambassador should always be a near perfect representation or the portrayal of the brand and as all the product from the staple of a company are not same, hence the same ambassador may not be suitable for the complete range of products.For example;ITC can certainly rope in Amitabh to be the brand ambassador for Wills[if cigeretter ads allowed], but he cant be a fit for wills lifestyle, as unlike Reid & Taylor Wills lifestyle caters to a different set of people and has a young & funky image which does not go along well with Amitabh.
And at the same time the investment in brand ambassador should make financial sense.So for some products which are not going to generate good cash flows in the forseeable future, roping in a Shahrukh cud be a risky proposition. Now to understand this lets see the decision matrix of a customer. We can divide the decision making of customer in certain components[Assumption:Cusomer wants to buy]; Brand Endorser, Brand History, Product Perception, Product Quality & Product services. Now the weightage given to all these factors could be 15%, 20%, 10%, 35% and 20%. At the same time most of the celebrities can be given some credibility index; For ex; Amitabhs, Sachins, Dravids can have a credibility index of 90-95 and Shahrukhs, Aishwaryas can have an index 80-85, Tushar kapur, Kishan kumars, an index 15-45. So if we see effectively the 15% weightage is not constant it does change with the celebrity that endorses the brand, So for any company it wud be difficult to replace Amitabh but they may be quite comfortable replacing Tushar Kapur.
Now in the case of Airtel TV, roping in Shahrukh when Dish TV is allready doing quite well cornering almost 50% market, would hardly have made a financially sound decision. As the net impact of Shahrukh on the decision making of customer wud have been (85-Dish TV Ambassador)×15%=[1% to 8%].
At the same time we can not blame celebrities too as many a times companies dump their brand ambassador too and I dont see any point in celebrities clinging to the brand because of loyality.
And as for the ability of the brand ambassador to induce loyality among customers, I believe neither the customer nor the celebrities can be loyal eternally to a brand. Loyality is an obsolete concept, now marketeers dont talk about loyality among customer; rather the exuberant sustenence of brand experience. So if a consumer felt very happy after consuming a product, the job of marketeer is to ensure that the exeperience is sutained either through better quality product delivery and services or through appealing to sensory stimulation by using good ads or making the association of brand with esteem or exclusivity or getting it endorsed by a celebrity.And not to forget business is usually not romantic, so there is not much space for loyality thing; loyality has to be purchased or sometime exchanged for loyality.
Another point that you made about credibility of brand ambassadors when they endorse multiple brands from more or less the same product basket, is certainly true. Certainly in such a case the premimum that the customer put on the recommendation of the celebrity goes down.
Hence I’m with Dhonis, Shahrukhs et al as long as they dont sell handkerchief and dont campaign for BJP
P.S. People who have girlfriends, talk to them or write poetry when they are drunk; Those who do’nt write crap & do maths when they are drunk
Chha gaya Ladka!!
Ye comment nahin ye to poora self sustained blog tha bhai
Thanks for sharing the info!!
tks for the effort you put in here I appreciate it!
[...] is a big dilemma when it comes to having Brand Ambassadors.In the part one,I had talked how companies are confused over choice of brand ambassadors and what confusion gets [...]