Role of the Brand Ambassadors in Marketing

A brand is what can either attract people to you or make people avoid you; people would identify you by the brand you portray. One can communicate their brand through actions and words. “It is essential to understand that wherever we are, in whatever we do, we are all building our brand”.

This bond that is created between the viewer and a celebrity helps understand the effectiveness that endorsements have where marketers have failed. The celebrity builds character in the eyes of the public and that character carries on into the product he is endorsing, and even though a part of the persuasion has to exist in the product itself, but a celebrity uses his status and the character he has built to gain credibility and likeability among the target audience. This character the celebrity transfers to the product is known as the “meaning “(2). The transfer of the meaning to the product goes through three stages. The first stage is in finding the celebrity with the desired meaning that they want to carry to the product this requires casting from the wide world of celebrity endorsers. The second stage is choosing which celebrity embodies the meaning the marketing campaign requires for the product, this stage is subject to expense restraints and availability. After deciding on an endorser stage three is the most complicated stage as in this step the endorser has to be able to transfer that meaning into the product, they have to make this meaning “available to the consumer in a material form”(2), this stage allows the consumer to accept the meaning they are given and accept the product and you use is a tool to build their own character. These three steps not only

It is known to be true that the best endorsements achieve a deriving ideas, style and taste between the product and the celebrity. Giving a brand an appearance is more than just a marketing strategy to increase sales; it is a decision that can change the outcome of the brand for the

more than sell the product. The athlete actually becomes a ‘human brand’ in his or her own right.”

Celebrity endorsement is possibly the most successful form of advertising. The fact that a celebrity approves of a product is often enough for people to get on board. Advertisements create a false life or image. Chiat says in his article: “Advertising--including movies, TV, and music videos--presents to us a world that is not our world but rather a collection of images and ideas created for the purpose of selling” (Chiat 212) .There is no better way to sell a false life or idea than to have a celebrity sell it for you.

Direct campaigns will target costumers focusing on prices and promotion, whether mass campaigns will focus on a corporate campaign (Cunard brand). This campaign will show the company expertise, trustworthiness, and likeability with powerful visual appeal linked with a strong slogan (ex: Cunard, the life experience). This approach may open the opportunity to link the attributes of the brand (excellence and elegance) with a celebrity (ex: Cindy Crawford), allowing the audience to remind the brand’s name.

Nike uses emotional context to appeal to a sports player mind. “Just do it”, Nike’s slogan, is encouraging athletics across the world to go on the field or gym and give it their all. Without seeing or directly experiencing the product, they convey a feeling to the audience to experience what it would be like to use their products. The main purpose of the Nike website is to adapt their audience to this ultra world of sports. Nike gives you the ability to do anything. Nike is a creditable source for quality sport clothing. They have contracts with Professional teams. When addressing counter arguments Nike has made it known to the world that they product the best athletic wear. Since being around from the 1960s Nike have been beating other competitive companies, such as Reebok, Adidas, and Under Armor. Stated by Hoover’s, Nike has 8 billion more total revenue then Adidas. They have been number one in their market for years. They challenge they best competitors, on Nike home page website they have the Jordan Jumpman label. Jordan is he greatest basketball player. With Jordan being with Nike there is no way none for the basketball audience to use a different brand then Nike.

Nike has revolutionized the way sportswear is sold and worn in today’s economy. They have found a way to sell gear that is made for athletics but is used in the everyday life of many generations. Nike has changed the social culture of many people. This is done through various methods of endorsements. Nike has perfected the art of advertising by finding the right formula of different ad styles.

Celebrities can have significant influence in commercials because people are going to more likely follow them due to his or her fame and/or popularity. For example, John Cena, a famous WWE wrestler advertised for a brand of garbage bags known as “Hefty Ultra Strong” garbage bags. The message in the commercial is that these Hefty brand garbage bags are mighty, strong, durable, and can withstand a lot of weight, like John Cena, not to mention these bags are low priced. As a result, many people may more likely buy Hefty brand garbage bags due to the commercial saying that they can hold more garbage than any other garbage bag without ripping or tearing.

Nike invested in their brand by getting sports heroes to advertise for their brand such as Michael Jordon, Tiger Woods and the Brazilian football team. This further fuel the products appeal towards the consumers.

Nike is a marketing trailblazer. Its commercials are so unique and iconic that every new advertising campaign is analysed by industry watchers and experts, and

First of all, a strong brand can be seen as the condition for organisations to expand products, offer more service, and introduce new products (Chernatony and McDonald, 2003). Secondly, a strong brand can lead to growth marketing communication effectiveness (Keller, 2009). ‘To build a strong brand, the right knowledge structures must exist in the minds of actual or prospective customers so that they respond positively to marketing activities and programs in these different ways.’(Keller, 2003, p. 140) Furthermore, Kay (2005) asserted that the strong brand can be seen as a resource of management, which make brand extension easier and useful to build distribution network. Companies are not treated by the intermediaries (Chernatony and McDonald, 2003). Moreover, companies are comparatively easier to change price if they have strong brands. As Henderson, et al (2003) said, a strong brand can allow for premium pricing even still remain loyalty customers, which help companies to survive in the intensive competitive market.

Self image has been research in the context of celebrity endorsement, and established that it is an important factor in marketing (Fortini-Cambell, 1992). Some of the respondents told stories of how they were influenced by celebrity endorsement when they were younger. One person referenced Michael Jordan and his endorsement of the Nike shoes. This reflects self image when considering what to buy and what influenced them. It also reflects a need to be different as well as the same time identify with a group of people. Apparently this can go both ways. If one product gets too popular among a certain group it can actually make others choose another product even though they like it.

Furthermore there are other researches as well which suggest that the approach of using a celebrity to endorse a product can not be viewed as a general practice of using any celebrity for any product endorsement. Pornpitakpan (2003), while discussing match-up hypothesis, describes the results of a study by Erdogen et al (2001) which suggests that "British advertising agency managers considered various criteria like celebrity- target audience match, celebrity-product match, overall image of the celebrity, cost of hiring the celebrity, celebrity trustworthiness, controversy risk, celebrity familiarity, celebrity prior endorsements, celebrity likeability, risk of celebrity overshadowing the brands, celebrity expertise, celebrity profession and celebrity physical attractiveness". A match between the target market and the endorser is important for effectively transmitting right message to target audience. For example, the advertisements which are produced by Pepsi, are mostly targeted for youths and so the celebrity endorsers that they use in their advertisements are young personalities. The match up hypothesis goes true for the multiple celebrity advertising as well. A good example of this is the Pulse Polio campaign taken up in India to eradicate the polio

Celebrities consult with marketing agents who uses three strategy efforts for personal branding. First, the pure selling approach where “an agent presents a client’s qualifications to potential buyers until he or she finds one who is willing to act as an intermediary” (Solomon, Marshall, & Stuart, 2016). Second, the product improvement approach where “an agent works with the client to modify certain characteristics that will increase his or her market value” (Solomon, Marshall, & Stuart, 2016). And third, the market fulfillment approach where “an agent scans the market to identify unmet needs. After identifying a need, the agent then finds a person or group that meets a set of minimum qualifications and develops a new product” (Solomon, Marshall, & Stuart, 2016).