brand ambassadors

Does your company have a 12th man advantage?

On the heels of Super Bowl XLVIII, I think we're all now familiar with the term "12th Man." In case you unplugged or tuned out for the last 72 hours, here's how it's defined on Wikipedia:

A few years ago, I was doing an interview for a new book about experiential marketing and I was asked about the importance of brand ambassadors. My response was that while they were certainly very important when you were doing marketing events, the truth is that there shouldn't be a select group of brand ambassadors. Every employee that you hire should be a brand ambassador. I've written about the importance of retail in the past:

I just returned from a trip to Montreal where I spoke at Webcom about humanizing business and brands. I also got to spend some quality time with folks I've admired for a while. While there I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with Trust Agent Julien Smith, and friends followed by a totally rocking Karaoke session with fellow enthusiast and Whuffie star Tara Hunt.

An individual who aligns themselves with a larger organization and has established a reputation, let's say in a niche is no longer representing themselves, they represent themselves, and the organization they work for. In other words, they become ambassadors for both.

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

Thanks to a US Congress focused on the major issues of our day, such as steroid use in pro baseball, Dr. Robert Jarvik can no longer shill for cholesterol drug Lipitor.

by: Iqbal Mohammed

In a recent blog post, Brants raises an interesting question : How should a celebrity endorser who also blogs react in a crisis afflicting the brand? Should he be true to his brand or to the spirit of blogging?