The presence of brand ambassadors is an important element to the success of a brand, especially when you are promoting it through social media. Brand ambassadors play an important role in leveraging a brand’s value. Therefore, targeting them as a part of the social media strategy is definitely worth spending time on. They are basically well known celebrities who have an amazing fan following and can effectively influence the decision making of people by endorsing a product.

They render instant marketing opportunities and act as the best critics for your business. Discovering & creating the right brand ambassador is indeed one of the most important things brands need to think of in order to get the best results in the marketing and social media world.

Moving on, lets find out effectiveness of the brand-celebrity connect where the brand image formulation process is actually accelerated with a celebrity endorsement. Also, how important are the celebrity endorsements for brands on social media.

How does it matter as to which clothing brand does Nargis Fakhri wear? Or, which mobile handset does Amir Khan endorse? Have you ever paused for a minute and wondered that the soft drink you are having has come to your table because somebody in the house is a Salman Khan fan! This may actually surprise those people for a minute and make them think, who are always curious to explore a co-relation between things.

Well, the entire concept of celebrity endorsement has evolved from what we call as a “Testimonial”, which is a spoken or a written statement by a person figure or from a citizen admiring the virtue of a particular product or brand.

As by each passing day social media is growing and becoming more influential in everyday life of people across the nation; companies and brand managers are tapping into the increased exposure this can provide to their products. With this, the rise in celebrity endorsements has led to a phenomenon where social media is now seen as an effective means to promote their brands through the personalities of the celebrities they sponsor.

Even, many full moons ago, marketing professionals focused on sticking a celebrity face behind a brand or a product to foster increased sales. This approach garnered success from all corners and has led to a point when it is almost impossible to name a big brand without some kind of celebrity brand ambassador behind it.

The ‘likes’, the ‘tweets’, and the ‘pins’ for a brand which is endorsed by a celebrity are reaching to a great level these days.

But the question is, do we really need celebrities?

Yes we do! There are facts that suggest the same. For example: In 2005, Motorola with its first ever ‘India Centric’ phone launch was all set with a brand name, objective etc. but later couldn’t garner market share. The marketers & brand managers of Motorola roped in Abhishek Bachchan, who had that techno-savvy-young-achiever image, as a brand ambassador. This certainly was a great step which certainly increased the market share of the product.

It has become more like a trend now, where we find celebrities tweeting about the brands they are endorsing & posting pictures of the photo shoots of these products. It seems like stars here want their fans to know about the products they endorse.

In the recent past, Salman Khan used his Facebook page to post videos of his ad for ‘Thums Up’. He was also seen changing his cover photo incorporated with the brand tagline of the Cola giant, eventually providing an advertising space for the brand. The page was flooded with tremendous comments and likes from his fans.

Coca-Cola India launched a summer campaign for its top brand Thums Up on the Facebook and Twitter pages of its new brand ambassador Salman Khan, taking the cola war to the online space. Salman Khan, the most popular Indian actor on the internet, has lent his Facebook page to a brand for this crucial campaign on social media. The actor’s Facebook page has a fan base of over 7.7 million, and he has 3.45 million Twitter followers. This is his first campaign for the beverage maker after a gap of a decade.

Salman Khan, 47, is hitting the great success wave with fantastic super hits and currently charging the highest endorsement fees in Bollywood.

Thums Up’s new campaign will take ahead the dare-devilry message synonymous with the brand.

Coca-Cola has also signed an agreement with Khan’s charity, Being Human – The Salman Khan Foundation, to jointly promote, conceive & execute charitable & social activities.

Two years ago, Coca-Cola had also signed cricketer Sachin Tendulkar as Coca-Cola brand’s ‘happiness ambassador’ for a three-year deal.

Fashionandyou.com, India’s leading online fashion and lifestyle store also launched Nargis Fakhri as their Brand Ambassador through social media. They showcased her on the portal’s website & Facebook page through a quirky teaser campaign named “Who Is She”, which received innumerable entries.

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She epitomizes fashion and style which complements the brand positioning very well.

FashionandYou possess one of the biggest social media footprints for e-retailers in India with a million plus fan base on Facebook. It is the first private online shopping club to achieve this milestone in the fashion and lifestyle segment worldwide

Check out how this online lifestyle and fashion brand launched their brand ambassador through this TVC on YouTube here:

Godrej launched its ‘Zindagi Muskuraye’ campaign with the Bollywood actor and perfectionist Amir Khan as Soniya. Amir, dressed up as a woman was seen in Godrej’s new commercial during IPL. Godrej commercials used this story with Amir to tell about their new range of products that enable a brighter living or ‘Zindagi Muskuraye’ thought. To bring about an interaction with its consumers this campaign was promoted through social media too. Quite amusing though, but everyone was waiting for this story to unfold.

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Videos were uploaded & shared on both mediums and fans were encouraged to guess what would happen next!

Aamir was also revealed as Sonia few days prior to the TVC going on air. A trailer was also shared with the social media community following this. Special Facebook and Twitter pages for ‘Zindagi Muskuraye’ were created that were occupied in engaging the online community with the ongoing story of Sonia, Sam & Meera.

On Facebook, fans were invited to watch the various episodes & guess how Sonia would react next, with prizes to be won. A Facebook app ‘Bloopers friends make‘enabled fans to tag their friends on the page and share their embarrassing bloopers. There was indeed a great response from fans for the app.

Even the Twitter page followed the engagement activities happening on Facebook. The ‘Bloopers Friends make’ on Facebook was run as #BloopersFriendsMake contest where followers were to tag their friends & share their bloopers. The product embed in the videos, coupled with amazing updates on Brand Ambassador Amir & the content on bright ideas surely took the brand to an all new level.

Celebrity endorsements are nevertheless an amazing marketing tool. The fact is that integrating celebrity’s star power will not only create awareness and interest of the brand but also leverage it on social media effectively.

Choosing the celebrity for a brand:

Choose a celebrity who induces positive emotions in your consumer’s minds, is likeable and creates buzz. In order to render credibility to the brand, make sure the celebrity is a good fit & has expertise with your product.

The value of celebrity endorsements have heightened with the rise of internet to a great extent. As an ever shortening attention span of consumers is becoming a concern for social media managers, a big celebrity name can help the brand get noticed. Celebrities do get our attention.

Celebrities have a great prestige and influence on social media. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as a surprise as to why advertisers and brand managers are increasingly leveraging social media platforms and celebrities to attract more and more consumers.

Celebrities are no doubt an invaluable asset for advertisers on social media. Celebrity endorsements trigger brands on social media and in turn signal consumers that a particular product is a good one. If you, as a brand rope in the most popular celebrity, come up with strong brand strategy etc. then it could have an extensive reach with social media. At the same time, if its outdated, the chances are it will attract negative emotions to the brand.

A few basic facts that you as a brand should take note to ensure a successful selection of the celebrity as a brand ambassador.

Selecting the right Celebrity

Anyone who is famous may be the right celebrity. However, the aptness of the celebrity largely depends on the product or service. Most advertisers insist that their celebrity ambassador should have charisma & popularity. This is the reason we see more of movie and television stars, athletes, real-life heroes, etc. acting as brand ambassadors in the market.

How a Marketer or Brand Manager should choose a Celebrity

Selection of the right celebrity is very crucial. The needs of the brand rather than the fame of the celebrity should be the primary criteria when selecting a celebrity spokesperson. The celebrity’s physical attractiveness, values, and credibility also matter tremendously. However, it would be suicidal to forget about the target audience.

Types of Celebrity Endorsements

Celebrity branding also has many aspects. A slight amend in the type of branding used can result in either a great success or a miserable failure. Celebrity branding falls into five general categories:

· Testimonial: Celebrity acts as a spokesperson for the brand.

· Imported: Celebrity performs a role known to the audience.

· Invented: Celebrity plays a new, original role.

· Observer: Celebrity assumes the role of an observer commenting on the brand.

· Harnessed: Celebrity’s image is integrated with the ad’s storyline.

A few challenges that can rope in:

A negative or a bad behaviour by the brand ambassador can create problems. For example: Tiger Woods lost his deals with Tag Heuer, Gillette, Accenture, Gatorade and a few other firms after it was discovered that he had extramarital affairs with at least a dozen women.

Nowadays, there are a few things that the marketers have to keep in mind for a smooth journey of celebrity endorsements they do. It is that, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has asked the celebrities on Twitter to be clear about their nature of advertising.

The OFT termed these advertised tweets as ‘deceptive advertising’ and said that the celebrities should clearly tell through their product promotion tweets whether they have been paid in cash or kind that too by using the word “#ad” or “#spon” (i.e., sponsored) to accompany the tweet.

One needs to have a social-media presence in order to have a successful, scalable business.

Celebrities have since a long time been an essential element for a new product launch and will remain to do so in the near future as well. It is because of their mass appeal and their loyal fans. But, when it comes to a brand, the impact is very high than just an advertisement that shows a celebrity.

The use of a celebrity magnifies the effect allowing the consumers to equate their (celebrity’s) personality and the brand together.

Don’t you think celebrity endorsements on social media are here to stay as their ability to deliver amazing results for brands is fantastic and cannot be sidelined at any cost? Therefore, in a world full of brand clutter & product muddle; celebrities seem to hit the nail on the head. Have you as brand managers identified your brand ambassadors? What have they done for your business, specifically on social media?