Choosing the right brand ambassador

by: Petra Despot, brand consultant

 

Driving through the streets of Zagreb this summer, there was one face smiling from the billboards that you just couldn’t miss - the face of the actress Doris Pincic. Doris became very popular by portraying Lara, a leading female character in Croatia’s most popular soap opera Lara’s Choice. The show had very high viewership and Lara soon became number one Croatia’s sweetheart. 

Croatian brands recognized this and recruited Doris (Lara) as their brand ambassador. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that, if Doris hadn’t become ambassador for three different brands at the same time. So on one billboard she was happily eating a slice of bread endorsing a brand of cream cheese, on another one she was shown wearing classy earrings for the jewelry brand, and on the third she was posing with an abandoned puppy for the local animal shelter.

Generally, I don’t have a problem with celebrities endorsing several brands at the same time, but in the market as small as Croatian, I would never recommend it to a brand. The reason is pretty obvious; the celebrity becomes synonym to everything, thus losing credibility, and the message he or she communicates becomes unauthentic and irrelevant. 

If your brand is unique, why shouldn’t that apply to its brand ambassador as well? Finding the most popular celebrity at the moment and riding the wave of their current fame is the easiest strategy. It is much harder (but much wiser in the long-term) to find a celebrity who truly embodies your brand’s values, someone that consumers will find authentic in promoting your brand’s vision. Good examples that come to my mind are Isaiah Mustafa for Old Spice and Angelina Jolie for Unicef.

I have a couple of recommendations to brands when choosing the right brand ambassador. First of all, the celebrity should be well known and favored within the brand’s target group. If the target group doesn’t have a clue how the person promoting the brand is, you might as well have your neighbor promoting it and save some bucks.

Secondly, the brand ambassador should embody the values, beliefs and attitudes of the brand he or she promotes. If the brand is luxurious, the person promoting it should have the sophisticated looks and be perceived as someone who can actually afford to buy such a product. If the brand is humoristic, you’ll choose a person who is witty and unpretentious.

Third, the person promoting the brand shouldn’t be overexposed as an ambassador of other brands, especially if we are talking about a small market. If a person is already promoting a brand of organic underwear, designer’s sunglasses and high-end vodka, you should think twice before hiring them to promote your brand. 

Without a doubt, Doris Pincic is widely recognized and favored within a certain target group who may just buy cream cheese, a necklace or adopt a puppy. However, that shouldn’t be the only reason for appointing someone to endorse and promote your brand. Seeing her lovely face on every other billboard in the street doesn’t ad to brands uniqueness or credibility.