Most brands have a personality, the personification of your company, it’s values, the needs it is created to fill, the customers you wish to attract, and the situations most associated with your products. You can identify your brand through the qualities of your products and what the public sees of your company in your presentations.

Determining Who Your Brand Is:

Is your approach:  

  • More fun or serious.
  • More energetic and spontaneous or careful, thoughtful and planning oriented.
  • More modern and technical or more classic and traditional.
  • More cutting edge or more established.
  • More friendly or more corporate.
  • More accessible to all or more upscale and exclusive.

The personality of your brand exists irrespective of the human persona you choose, But the human imagination likes to tie personal qualities to a human image. That’s part of the reason why history is always a story of the personalities of kings. You identify your brand persona by the personal qualities that your brand and your product set already have. It is very important that your persona be an accurate reflection of your brand. If the images don’t fit the disparity can confuse the public and drive them away from your brand.

What is a Spokesman?

A brand spokesman is sometimes called a brand ambassador. The brand spokesperson informs the public about your brand to the public. The role has a sales and marketing function. The spokesperson is the lead image when your brand is presented in public.  

Often these personalities, who represent a brand are famous personalities, who personify the kind of person who would favor your brand and make use of your products. However, they can be people who possess certain important characteristics.

  • The brand spokesperson has to be active in the field, meeting potential customers and participating in special events.
  • A brand ambassador or spokesperson must know his or her way around marketing. He or she needs to be given the product knowledge.
  • The brand spokesperson should be able to adapt and work with your project manager and product development team find new ways to present your products. From his or her perspective in the field, he or she must be able to make useful suggestions and improvements to benefit the brand and improve consumer engagement.
  • The brand spokesperson must be a public speaker, able to engage others in conversation to promote your products. He or she must be warm, engaging and able to handle difficult people.

Good and Bad Spokespeople:

When a brand spokesperson is part of any kind of public infamy, the brand may suffer costly consequences. A prime example is Subway’s experience with Jared Fogle. Fogle became the spokesman for Subway when he showed he could lose weight eating Subway sandwiches. However, his career took a dramatic collapse when he was implicated in child pornography scandals. The Subway brand underwent a painful transition due to the public repudiation of its ambassador.

When the brand ambassador makes widely criticized public comments, the brand suffers. Three-quarters of the insurance business of Aflac reportedly comes from Japan. When the voice of the Aflac duck, Gilbert Gottfried made much publicized negative comments about the Japanese tsunami crisis, put this business in danger and Aflac executives had to scramble to distance the company from them.

When Ben Curtis, the youthful college student representing Dell computers was arrested for marijuana possession, it had a negative effect on the public perception of the brand. 

Successful brand ambassador programs often involve groups drawn from the general public. Fiskars scissors engaged groups of scrapbookers to fan out into the public to represent the brand of scissors. Google hires ambassadors to wander through study halls of elite engineering universities to offer pizza to hardworking students.

Brand ambassadors spread enthusiasm about a brand.

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