Celebrities as Brand Ambassadors

Successful branding mostly depends on the Brand Ambassador in this highly competitive world of goods and services marketing. In fact it is one of the best Intellectual properties a company can possess and thus ensure for itself sustained profitability and growth rate. So much literature have been written on Brand Ambassador Creation and management, which often lead to confusion and diffusion of understanding the simple facts about Brands. This article attempts to touch upon crucial concepts behind celebrities as BRAND AMBASSADORS and their effectiveness.

Telecom major Bharti Televentures announced batting maestro Sachin Tendulkar as its new brand ambassador besides unveiling a brand campaign-Express Yourself-for its mobile service brand AirTel. "Sachin and AirTel both are leaders having similar values and personality traits like trustworthiness, friendliness, youthfulness and trend-setters," Manoj Kohli, president (mobility), Bharti Televentures, said in New Delhi.

Brand ambassadors are required for specific brands. May be Shahrukh is not required for Santro because he may never use the product but Sachin Tendulkar or Leander Paes are definitely effective for a brand like Adidas, because they believe in the product and hence use it with conviction. It is important to remember that brand ambassadors are usually for the local market. US Teen Idol Kobe Bryant, successor to Michael Jordan, is relatively unknown in India. Similarly, Indian icon, Sachin Tendulkar is unknown in countries like the USA and Germany.

It is as simple as common sense that brand ambassadors play an important role for effective advertisement. The Celebrity as a brand ambassador should be focused, should convey a promise and deliver it over a long period of time, should reflect target market's cultural and lifestyle values, should have excellent yet SIMPLE communication of core benefit and brand should smoothly merge into daily lifestyle of the consumers and not try to alter it.