The Brand Ambassador Marketing Model Guide

The brand ambassador is a marketing model that employs trusted, credible personalities to promote and give greater visibility to its brand products. But outside of the traditional, big money advertising world, where famous actors or sport stars are utilized as "ethical" promotional promoters of unique events or services, the idea of a new kind of brand ambassador, a grassroots conceived-one, has yet to trickle down the marketing strategies adopted by successful companies. Photo credit: sgursozlu What kind of new brand ambassador am I talking about? The new kind of brand ambassador I envision is a true passionate consumer who volunteers to sponsor a company or product he / she uses and likes. This would be a passionate individual who has already been acting spontaneously as a "brand ambassador", providing credible, valuable and impartial info, exposure and visibility to a company product. On the web there are many people who, consciously or not, act as spontaneous brand ambassadors for many products and services. Why not consider to prize and reward economically those that have been doing so spontaneously? Why not give them greater and better opportunities to do so? Self-elected, grassroots brand ambassadors are by definition actual users, passionate consumers of something they really use and like. The key value they have in the eyes of their own audiences is that they are credible, trusted and honest. They wouldn't recommend something they did not truly tried and believed in. This is why, companies considering such an innovative marketing approach should be careful in not confusing the idea of paying someone to do marketing and promotion actions versus the idea of rewarding those who, while very competent and credible in their sectors, have already proven to be natural, spontaneous best matches to the role of a brand ambassador. A brand ambassador of such kind could act as a great resource to collect and gather valuable feedback and criticism from other customers while being himself a great advisor to any company product development office. Brand ambassadors would also be key in showcasing and promoting new products while utilizing communication approaches that are more in tune with how successful companies are communicating today on the web and across social media. But this is just my own idea. Out there, in the advertising and marketing world, the word "brand ambassador" means different things to different people. If you are interested in making greater sense of what the brand ambassador idea is about, I have curated a selection of the very best articles available on the Web on this highly relevant marketing topic. Here my super-guide to the brand ambassador marketing model:

The Brand Ambassador Marketing Model Guide

Advertising 2.0 Model: The Brand Ambassador

The Brand Ambassador is an advertising model that leverages the authority and credibility of online personalities to create a powerful direct marketing strategy. A respected followed authority, a blogger or small publisher targeting a specific audience niche can be a much more effective vehicle for marketing communication that the most expensive advertising campaign.

Who Are The Brand Ambassadors?

Brand ambassadors ideally listen and learn from ongoing conversations and then engage in them, forming bidirectional interactions. Ideally, they also talk about more than just their brands on social networks. A good ambassador will also talk about other aspects of his or her life, to the point that followers eventually begin to see the brand ambassador as something of a trusted friend.

The Role of The Brand Ambassador Is To Transcend All Aspects of The Brand: Abhishek Bachchan

The role of the brand ambassador is to transcend all aspects of the brand. You have to embody the brand you are endorsing, the give and take is very important. Just like the brand endorser has to embody the product values, the product, too, must reflect elements of the brand ambassador’s personality. In a sense, the brand personality and the endorser must hold the same morals and principles, style and appeal.

The Top 6 Branding and Brand Ambassador Tips

Six practical tips from ArticleBase about the brand ambassador role and the branding strategy that will help you leverage the credibility and authority of your brand.

'Brand Ambassadors' Give Your Business a Boost

Your customers are the key to your success in more ways than you might think. By buying your product again and again, they are providing the revenue you need to stay alive. But they also are living, breathing examples of consumers who used your product or service to fill a need. They are your key ambassadors.

Shouldn't Every Employee Be a Brand Ambassador?

...while brand ambassadors are certainly very important when you are doing marketing events, the truth is that there shouldn't be a select group of brand ambassadors. Every employee that you hire should be a brand ambassador.

This Is Not a Sponsored Post: Paid Conversations, Credibility & The FTC

Many expert and lifestyle “citizen” bloggers and online weblebrities are creating communities around their personas as they freely and actively share personal and identifiable experiences online, in social networks and also in the real world. Those who can successfully connect their stories to others in and around their peer groups earn trust, visibility and authority - limited only by ambition and ingenuity. They’re rewarded for their presence and ability to point their followers in strategic directions.

The Brand Ambassador - Josh Bernoff

Duration: 2' 43''
Full English Text Transcription
Josh Bernoff: Now, I think it's very important and if I were the manufacturer of the camera I would be looking for people like you and then contacting you directly. This is one of the hardest things, this is that companies are used to talking to people in masses. But you as an individual firstly have an audience, right? That there are thousands of people interested in what you read, what you write, and then you are a genuine believer. So they need to call you up and say:

"Can we help you out? Would you like to try the new one out and talk about what you think about it? We are going to give you some photos or videos that you might want to put up on your site, you become friends with our page on Facebook and then your Facebook friends will see that. You become friends and maybe become interested in it."

They need to treat you and the other individuals like you - and it might only be 25 people - they must treat you as if you were the most important people in the world because what you say it is actually more powerful than anything they would say.
Robin Good: Is that situation at risk when those companies economically support those brand ambassadors? Josh Bernoff: This is something that we have been discussing recently and it is a matter of some controversy. There is sort of a spectrum here. Everyone acknowledges that... say, allows you to use the camera for three months to try it out. That's normal and the journalists do that. Supposed they let you keep the camera, that's more like a payment because they give you money and say: "We're going to pay you to try this out and use it". Where we at Forrester draw the line is we say:

1. "If you are going to pay someone then you must require that they disclose that in any communication that they have". If you put a blog post about it you need to say: "Yes, I received some money to write about this".
2. The second requirement is you must be allowed to write whatever you want. You could say: "I received this money to write about this, and you know what? It's really not very good." You have to have the freedom to do that.

We think that with that disclosure requirement and the ability to be authentic then it is OK if the payment goes on. There are others who certainly disagree, but you see this sort of sponsorship happening all the time and I think it is better to have rules around it than to trying make something that says: "No, that's not possible".

Originally prepared by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and first published on July 8th, 2009 as "The Brand Ambassador Marketing Model Guide".

Photo credits: Who Are The Brand Ambassadors? - Darren Whittingham The Role of The Brand Ambassador Is To Transcend All Aspects of The Brand: Abhishek Bachchan - Bollywood.ac The Top 6 Branding and Brand Ambassador Tips - Boris Ryzhkov Shouldn't Every Employee Be a Brand Ambassador? - Apple Inc. This Is Not a Sponsored Post: Paid Conversations, Credibility & The FTC - TechCrunch