Monday 30 January 2012

In Brand Experiences we Trust

Every Monday a chap called Roy H. Williams (otherwise known as the Wizard of Ads) drops an email into my inbox. The week before last his newsletter informed us readers how customers aren’t gullible anymore – they can sense when you’re trying to sell to them. They aren’t interested in ‘positive thinking’ and gloss anymore; they’re all about action and doing. “Don’t tell us, show us!”, he continued. How true this is, given that these days household budgets are squeezed and every purchase is thought about long and hard.

Every year we hold a meeting with our Brand Experience Event Managers. It’s an opportunity for them to share their stories and experiences from the past year as they’ve toured the country doing store launches and promotional activity for our clients. We give them all manner of activities to do, from hosting product launches for our many and varied clients to a range of different promotional activities we manage for clients like T Mobile. The one thing that really stuck with me after this meeting was how they kept talking about how the activities we dream up for them to run encourages shoppers to queue and wait to take part in the activity. This, they tell us, gives them a chance to stand chatting to the shoppers, earning their trust, telling them about the brand and showing them the latest handsets and gadgetry. The shoppers soon forget about the potential prize they might be able to win on the wheel of fortune and, with the help of our brand ambassadors, ask to be ushered into the nearby store to purchase the product. How about that for delivering results?

It’s always been the case that brands require a solid marketing mix in order to get the best cut through for their products but with the right idea and the right people it really is possible for brands to genuinely gain the trust of their customers.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

You are spoiling us (Brand) Ambassadors!

In the run up to the New Year the whole team at MotivAction have been working their socks off to win some fantastic new brand experience projects for some of the world’s best-known brands. In addition, Dave Turner our Operations Manager has been busy visiting universities and holding recruitment days to recruit the next wave of brand ambassador talent. I thought I’d catch up with him to find out what he and the team look for in great brand ambassadors.

What’s the most important quality you look for in a brand ambassador?

Being a brand ambassador isn’t an easy job. Imagine standing in a busy shopping centre and trying to encourage passers-by to stop and be engaged in the client’s brand or offer. You don’t have time to be a sales person, you only have time to be their best friend. So, what do we look for? Mostly natural charm and charisma.

What is the selection process like?

It’s actually quite tough. We only have a few hours with these guys so our interview techniques have to quickly identify those that are going to be great at the job. We carefully outline the nature of the job to each of the interviewees and we then give them the opportunity to leave half way through if they don’t think they are going to be able to do it.

You spend quite a lot of time on the road searching for brand ambassadors, what are the benefits to our clients?

It’s really important that our clients’ brands are represented properly so we work hard to find brand ambassadors that we know, that work well in a team and that will deliver 100% of the time. Then we can match specific brand ambassadors that will work best for a specific client.

If you’re interested in becoming one of MotivAction’s Brand Ambassadors visit fill in our recruitment form or drop us a line with a little information about yourself to crew@motivaction.co.uk.