The Thing About Brand Ambassadors

What is it about the best brand ambassadors? What makes an ideal brand ambassador?
Could anyone be a brand ambassador?

According to the rules, the best brand ambassador has to be a person who represents the same beliefs of the brand, someone who embodies the image, the values and everything the brand stands for. The person everyone sees as the direct consumer of the product who believes in the product. That's the original way to do it.
Let's classify this as class A.

However, in recent times brands have taken the cheat route and just pulled out a currently popular person to represent their label as brand ambassadors. With no common values and weak or inconsistent personal identities of their own, these are usually spoiled celebrities who walk in and assume everyone loves them.
Let's classify this as Class B.

Lastly comes the brand ambassador of a entirely different kind.
The one who is born from an idea and with a strong back story and unique identity.
Let's classify this as Class C.


The Brand Ambassadors we have now:

Virat Kholi & Alia Bhatt
Class B

I admit that Virat has his share of talent for the game he plays and is good at what he does.
Came up the ranks in the right way and has his rightful place. But then he adopted this bad guy poster boy image. Looks like he is angry at everyone all the time and wants you to believe that fairness creams and low range smartphones and clothing will take you places.

Are we proud to be the #Selfiesthan?

The selfie trend which gained traction since the rise of smartphones with front cameras; has now amassed a popularity like no other. With people from all backgrounds and languages aware of the word and the action associated with it, the word selfie has gone on to become a powerful selling point in marketing communication. With smartphone manufacturers packing feature after feature to bump up their front camera capabilities just to sell their phone as the number one selfie phone.

But here is the Selfie problem. Selfies kill.
Some may find it hard to believe how a small seemingly harmless action like this can cause such heavy damage but here is the raw truth of selfie deaths.
India is home to the most selfie deaths in the world. It does not end there, India is also home to 60% of the global selfie deaths.


There is something going terribly wrong here, India has a lowly 20% smartphone penetration for its massive population and sadly a good number of people end up killing themselves with selfie deaths for doing something as normal as taking a picture.

   

So what was Gionee thinking when they made their ads calling India the 'Selfiesthan'.
What's in a selfie that one needs to be so proud of doing it?
What greatness is achieved by snapping a badly framed picture of your face with just 20% of the background behind you visible?
What's so special about Indians taking a selfies as compared to any other nationality doing it?

The Micromax Ad that destroyed the brand.

Since the launch of the brand, Micromax enjoyed a few good years as the leading low budget - big on features smart phone brand. They made a big impact in the market and had an customer base of college students, low income corporate employees and people with plain shitty taste in quality. 

Success went to their heads so fast that Micromax started to rip off iPhone advertising. Cheeky!
Pumping tons of cash in advertising did push the brand to look better in the market and get more mouths talking about their products but at the end of the day the devices were china made pieces of shit. With no reliability and deteriorating quality from the moment you took it out of the box, we pity the idiots who went on to buy another Micromax in their lives.

There is a limit to how far you can push your brand using white people but with the number of Indian brands who use western (white skin only) persons to give their brand an international image, Micromax went a step ahead and roped in Hugh Jackman too. This was pretty big and a first for an Indian brand to do something of this scale. Poor Jackman wouldn't have a clue about brand perception as all they must have shown him were sales numbers.

Micromax shot itself in the face with this ad and paved the way for its own doom. Motorola introduced its budget phones of much higher quality, features and reliability and Micromax to this day has no answer. The smartphone market is a competitive place and Micromax had its glory days, its 2017 and they are just struggling to hang on now.