It is often common to see the faces of celebrities such as musicians and actors, actresses, comedians, and other such entertainers on billboards, posters, commercials, and other advert campaigns. Many multi-national companies and consumer products use these celebrities to promote their products, goods or services since they are familiar faces in the society that the general public can relate with.

These celebrities sign mouth-watering deals and contracts with these organizations and companies for the service of being brand ambassadors. Their roles as brand ambassadors is simply to promote the interest of the company or organization in terms of awareness and increase in the profit margin as they help attract more customers or clients to them as the case may be.

Celebrities such as Ini Edo, Omawumi, Van Vicker, Lagbaja, Funke Akindele (Jenifa), Burna Boy, Rita Dominic, Flavour, Waje, Jim Iyke, Basketmouth, Monalisa Chinda, Chioma Chukwuka and some others have at one time or the other acted or acting as brand ambassadors for telecommunications giant Globacom. Genevieve Nnaji has been a brand ambassador for Lux soap and in June 2012, she signed an endorsement deal with Range Rover and got a Ranger Rover Evogue as part of the deal. Kate Henshaw for Onga seasoning, the duo of Wizkid and Tiwa Savage are brand ambassadors for Pepsi while more recently singer D’Banj was also announced as the ambassador for Bank of Industries (BOI).

The controversial brand ambassadorial role however that I will like to talk about here is that of Saka, the former Etisalat brand ambassador who suddenly switched to lanes to MTN with the “I Don Port” advert. If you watch television regularly, you must have come across the Nigerian actor Hafiz Oyetoro a.k.a Saka. He is very popular for his hilarious Etisalat adverts.

The controversial advert was first aired on Monday the 22nd of April when MTN launched its network portability. Sources close to him says he was paid something around the region of N20 million for the advertisement. And this brings me to the question of the role of brand ambassadors, is their loyalty pitched in the tent of the highest bidder? Ever since the advert was broadcasted I have found this questioning troubling my mind and I can only wonder why these companies use celebrities if it is all about the money paid to them. Shouldn’t the choosing of a brand ambassador be based on someone that can add value to the organization and has a relation to the product or service being marketed?

For example, Saka has been promoting Etisalat all this while and finds it so easy to switch to MTN with such easy ease, then does that mean he is passing across to us that MTN is suddenly better than Etisalat? What then happens to the customers he has helped attract to the Etisalat network?

Whether we like it or not or want to acknowledge it or otherwise, celebrities carry much influence in the society and can be regarded as opinion leaders in their own right. Most people look up to them especially the youths and they can help in decision making and this can even be seen in political campaigns when politicians use them for campaigns such as that of Segun Arinze, Don Jazzy, D’Banj and Daddy Showkey for president Goodluck Jonathan, the likes of Chris Rock, Beyonce, Samuel L. Jackson, Jay Z, John Legend, Katy Perry, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga and a host of others for president of the United States of America, Barack Obama. It is without doubt therefore that celebrities play a key role in nation building and opinion formation.

The Saka ‘I Don Port’ episode has only taught me one lesson and that is the fact that most of these celebrities and even the companies don’t think of the importance of brand ambassadors before they sign deals and contracts. Some of these celebrities don’t even understand what they are getting into before they sign the deals; the money is the attraction. As for the companies, they don’t look at the lifestyle of the person before signing them, they pick their ambassadors based on popularity and end up at times choosing people who don’t even represent the image of what the organization is about. Take American rapper Lil Wayne for an example who PepsiCo Inc. (giant soda beverage company) had to cut ties with as brand ambassador over his crude lyrics about the death of civil rights symbol Emmett Till.
Pictures at: http://poshkidcharming./2013/05/25/celebrities-as-brand-ambassadors-saka-i-don-port-episode/

Posted by Poshkid Charming
www.poshkdcharming.