Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Brand Communication : Store Facade and Brand Ambassadors

Festive mood is all around and with Christmas just gone by and New Year around the corner High Streets, Malls and Commercial markets across the country are decorated and well lit up to welcome the customers. For all offline stores it's first contact point with the customer at the shop point is the Shop Facade / Shop Front / Show Window. 

As they say first impression is the lasting impression and any retailer out there would vouch for this. 
Today on my way back from office came across this Shop Facade at Jayanagar - Flying Machine Brand Store. 


Flying Machines is an Indian jeans Brand owned by Arvind Mills

Flying Machine was launched in 1980 by Arvind Lifestyle Brands Limited. 
Flying Machine roped in emerging star Abhishek Bacchan to be its Brand Ambassador in 2007. 

Next to join the Brand Ambassador list was cricketing icon Virat Kohli with currently the rising bollywood star Arjun Kapoor endorsing the brand. 
Few days back was having a discussion regarding the impact of a brand ambassador on the company's sale. One of the exciting topics or highly debated one in the B-School arena or especially during the quiz contests at Managements fests. 
What I did not understand during my classroom session on Brand Ambassador was the cost involved in keeping a Brand Ambassador, benefits of adopting this marketing strategy on the product, product acceptance or awareness that a Brand Ambassador can deliver in a quick span of time, risk of the Brand Ambassador taking all the lime light and product not standing out which is the main objective and giving up may more things that you can do with the money that you spend on hiring a famous face for endorsing your product. 
Recent example which comes to my mind is Hrithik Roshan and Sonam Kapoor endorsing Oppo smart phone. I am sure the investment to rope in both of them would have been huge, but the instant recognition that a new brand can get through this route is immense.

One industry which comes to my mind when I think of the Brand Ambassadors is the watch industry with every international brand getting one celebrity on board to endorse their brand as a lifestyle product. 
Some of the recent Brand Ambassadors in the watch industry endorsing different brands: 
>Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for Longines
>Shah Rukh Khan for Tag Heuer
>Hrithik Roshan for Rado
>Abhishek Bachchan for Omega
>Sachin Tendulkar for Audemars Piguet
>Harbhajan Singh for Hublot
>Deepika Padukone for Tissot
>Yuvraj Singh for Ulysse Nardin
In the coming posts would try to analyze the concept of Brand Ambassadors through many live and practical examples and case studies. Stay tuned and do provide your inputs on this concept. 
  

No comments:

Post a Comment