4 Campus Ambassador Snags To Dodge

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When your brand ambassadors come across as promoters for a pyramid scheme – you’re doing it wrong and the youth will run for cover. Forcing ambassadors to spam students with meaningless info is definitely not going to help your brand speak to the youth in a way that attracts them. Before you sign up your next crew of campus ambassadors and place your brand in their hands, there are a few critical stumbling blocks and clarifications to get out of the way.

1. 1.       The Wrong Approach

They have a pack of flyers, a campus full of students to target and script of all the things they need to remember to say about your brand. Sounds about right? They can fire off, hand out these super cool flyers on campus, chill at lunch with their friends, drop some knowledge of your brand and take a selfie for social media too. Their friends are bound to buy your products. It’s a walking commercial – can you say #Aweful!

Brand ambassadors are meant to represent your brand positively, influence people to buy into you and become that go-to friend that students hit up for info on your brand. Even though they are meant to be “one with your brand”, they aren’t supposed to act like door to door sales people. Instead they should be like a highly satisfied customer that refers to your brand through testimonial and when it’s appropriate.

1. 2.      All Tools, No Craft

If our previous scenario of a terrible campus ambassador set-up still haunts you, good! Your brand needs a different strategy to ensure their ambassador programme’s success and see it as a tool that works when sales doesn’t. Before the right tactics can be identified, brands need to have a full understanding of what’s in and what’s not with young consumers and this is where a good brand ambassador will already get involved. They can give peer insights, advice on what works and help your brand figure out when, where, how and why certain ambassadors should activate your brand in their personal capacity. They’re involvement not only helps to better equip your brand but builds an authentic relationship with the youth. With some product knowledge, goods to share and sincere brand advocacy, your brand’s a winner with your ambassador and their circle!

1. 3.       Aimless Wander

Briefs for ambassador programmes have a reputation for being…well…brief. The mistake brands make is to expect ambassadors to build relationships for the brand, without having those relationships themselves to begin with. This can lead to a myriad of issues like ambassadors being afraid to ask questions for fear of sounding incompetent, mislead campaign execution, lack of return on investment and missing objectives completely.

By not equipping your brand ambassadors with the right tools and someone to guide them, you are likely to make a fraction of the impact you’re hoping to make, and are simply paying an influential student for a fake endorsement that their peers can see a mile away. How will the youth believe ambassadors love our brand, if they have no knowledge of what they supposedly love?

A brief should be more than stuffing campus ambassador dorms with your products. Brand ambassador relationships should be nurtured with brand knowledge, access to products or resources and a connection to someone who can guide them to execute strategy in their different settings.

1. 4.       Mismatching

Choosing the right ambassador is about way more than picking influencers with a good reputation and large social media following. If the future of marketing to youth is targeted, you’d agree that you should pick an ambassador that matches your audience’s character. Carvela have done this well recently with their #LoveMyCarvela campaign where young ambassadors not only got to indulge in the brand for the heck of it, but actually suited the audience the brand wishes to attract. Giving ambassadors projects that resonate with who they are and the circle of youth they’re going to share a brand connection with is half the battle won.

What Makes An Ambassador Programme Successful?

Young up and coming brand ambassadors aren’t confined to campus and their effects go far beyond as they grow closer to your brand. From infiltrating events to creating occasions for your brand to work it. With this said, to put together a good ambassador campaign that will deliver these results on and off campus, you need to understand your target market and how they can possibly experience your brand naturally. This is the only way for your brand to know how to insert itself amongst students, remain organic and still get the youth to have positive brand experiences, secretly coaxing them to love it!

You’ve tried the rest, now try the best! Let Student Village carve out your Campus Ambassador Strategy and show you how it’s done. Contact us on 011 885 3918 or email [email protected].