An Elephant With An Ant Head "Brand Ambassador"

The idea is to take the brand ambassador concept to a whole new level where it’s not some Shahid Afridi (a famous Asian cricketer) or Cristiano Ronaldo that represent the whole face of one giant organization, how could that be possible it is like limiting your organization to very small picture.

Off course I am not of the view that individual brand ambassador is a dead wood now but imagine just one representing the whole or  few representing the whole big thing is like weird. Did you ever hear an American being called America, or dolphin being called ocean. Weird right?!

That’s how strange I find it this concept and many of you guys might find my idea cranky too thanks to the general accepted marketing point of view. But like I said I am not going to stick with tradition unless there is no room for improvement and considering that I find lots of room over here for improvement rather reconsidering the whole brand ambassador concept.

The second thing that I find strange with this concept is that the whole brand ambassador thing has been limited to mass media we don’t see them in real and imagine that with another approach where your ambassadors would live all over within your target market. Cool right?! Well what am suggesting is to use a particular group in a particular market as brand ambassador.

So what are the possible benefits of having an elephant with an elephant head?

Benefits of having an Elephant head for an Elephant

• Firstly it would look like an elephant and hence people would know what they are looking at and what does the elephant has to offer (except for ivory ;p). And what shouldn't they expect from. (My analogy of org with an elephant is just one of thousands of examples, like an ant with an elephant head would be another one where an Org is giving out a false image that makes the people to expect more which it can’t deliver as its not elephant but an ant).

• The group would give the organization a deep and all over penetration capacity as the group members would be in constant contact within society thus encouraging the potential customers to go for their brand.

• Can be highly personal I don’t know how would Cristiano Ronaldo feel about the Adidas footwear in reality in fact I may never know. Media is deceptive and a tool to propagate the interests of few. But if a Joe in my neighborhood is from the group ambassador I would definitely have his personal views about the brand that would definitely encourage most of us to go for that brand.

• A far better way to get your organization message across that “Samsung doesn’t mean phone” but wide range of different products. The more people are well aware of a brand (Organization) array of products the more they are likely to buy that brand.

• Instead of giving millions in $ to few individuals to present you how about a quite bigger group of people that would present you all over in the market personally with a far lower cost. And if it cost high or just as the same of those few it’s a far better option to go for the stated benefits.

• An individual might affect people with his crichtonic capacities in particular thing but he is less likely to make someone go for your product except for his diehard fans. The group on the other hand would have far greater impact. We as humans do behave differently when it comes to huge numbers. We make sometime irrational, unreasonable and pure emotional choices thanks to group impact. So why not use it to our advantage. Obviously not tempting people to make irrational choices but to make the best ones. Now that depends on the organization to come up with the best. Obviously people aren’t makers they are the consumers, users.

• The larger the group the greater the clutter leading to deep Organization recognition and consequently far more acceptance.

Now where to find such group source

The question is well okay, you proposes a different approach but is there any way from where we can start this? Yes off course! You can start your group ambassador campaign from identifying the prestigious groups in a market where they are considered as the best of the society. Like to target youth how about an organization start it from few well renowned universities around the country, I mean in that market.

All that is required is to identify a group that at least have potential to bring in the above benefits and that’s it. Now do your marketing thing with that group and present an elephant as an elephant so that people get the whole picture and understand what an elephant has to offer.

There are no set guidelines for considering a specific group but you can develop your own according to market situation and there you go after starting with this strategy you would have a legion of ambassadors who would be able to connect with people on their levels so it won’t be a big deal for them to connect to them and give them awareness about how big elephants actually are.

Bottom Line:

Your brand ambassador should be what you (Organization) are, no more no less.