Engaging a Brand Ambassador for your next Fashion Campaign

Choosing a Brand Ambassador for a campaign, product or a company can be a daunting task to undertake. The success of your engagement with a brand ambassador will be measured by your overall campaign goal. Over the years, we have seen companies engage several personalities from various industries such as sports, entertainment, lifestyle and business for one campaign or the other.

It is evident that brand ambassadors play very vital roles in influencing consumer perception, promotional strategies. Studies have over 70% of brand perception by consumers is determined by the experience with an individual representative of the brand.

They are either engaged to become the face of a particular product, a campaign or a company by leveraging on their personality and following both online and offline to influence, communicate, promote or drive consumers to action. These partnerships most times are meant to increase awareness and generate consumer appeal, trust and possibly eventual purchase depending on the ultimate goal of the campaign.

In some instances, things could get out of hand with a brand ambassador which could have dire consequences on the company’s reputation and in turn affect the company’s revenue.

In avoidance of any crisis and damages, companies and brand managers need to consider the following in deciding who, why and how they should sign up that brand ambassador.

Do a thorough research

Before ever settling on who to engage for a brand ambassador role, make sure to do a thorough background check of who the person is. Know who they are, what they do, what they represent and their values. Review their history and past affiliations with other brands. Be sure the person has a good track record that will make consumers trust him or her and which will certainly be translated onto your product. Consider someone who is trust worthy and can represent your brand at all times. Your research should also answer questions such as; Does he or she appeal to your target market? Does the person have tendency to drive consumer decision to purchase? Once these are answered in the affirmative, then you are good to go.

Consider someone who is media and consumer friendly

Brand ambassadors must be media-friendly and relate to all persons across board. They must be able to answer questions about your product and speak confidently and directly about your brand to the media and also help you in achieving your entire communication and brand goal. Additionally, they should be able to properly deliver your message to the right target market. Being in a social media and technological era, it will be an added advantage to have someone who has a good following and engagement on social media.

Clearly state his or her scope of work

Once you have settled on who you want to sign up for as your brand ambassador, clearly spell out their scope of work in a written document that binds his or her deliverables, timelines, and KPI’s etc. With this done, the brand ambassador understands the magnitude and scope of the work before work commences.

Provide detailed Messaging Guide

Providing them with a messaging guide will be in place to ensure that they know what to say, when to say it and which medium they ought to say it. A messaging guide also sees to it that the right information being conveyed to your intended target market. The messaging should be relateable and done to reflect the personality’s way of doing and saying things, that way its original as possible.

Sign a Memorandum of Understanding or Contract

Having a binding document is very crucial when working with a brand ambassador for your business or product. Many a times, people do not take this aspect seriously and eventually find themselves in legal battles. The contract should clearly spell out the legal ramifications should either party default on their obligations as carried out in the binding document. Issues of exclusivity and default should all be clearly agreed upon before appending a signature onto the document. When not sure, do consult a legal practitioner to assist you on that.

Have a Crisis Communication Plan

No one expects a crisis in any business venture, but the unexpected always happens. It will be best to have a plan in place to deal with such issues rather than to be caught off guard and unprepared. A crisis communication plan will be a road map to guide you in dealing with any issue that will arise as a result of your partnership with the brand ambassador. It will direct how to manage and communicate your way out of the ‘mess’ created. A crisis management specialist can help you get a plan in place.

Photocredit: Google Image

Faith Senam Ocloo
Fashion Public Relations
Fashion I Beauty I Lifestyle I Arts

Why Building Relationships are Important for your fashion brand

In business, relationships are equally important and having a mutual beneficial relationship could go a long way to help your brand especially in times when you need it most. From your direct customers or clients to vendors, employees to anyone who is either directly or indirectly connected to your business, building a good relationship with them serves as a bedrock upon which your product can flourish.

For many startups and young businesses, it is important to start building your relationship early in order to gain trust and credibility which could serve as an extra advantage for you in this competitive and saturated market. Be it through good customer service, personal engagement, proactive communication, good relationship should be established at all levels.

Be it internal or external stakeholders, their role to the growth of your business varies and as such they all play a unique role that needs to be solidly built for the benefit of your business. Same way, any dent on these relationships could adversely affect all efforts put into it.

Building relationship also means establishing good communication lines between your company and these various stakeholders or publics.

Here are 4 ways why building relationships are important to fashion brands.

Helps you achieve your goals

Every company no matter how young the business is has company goals and objectives. By building good relationship with your publics for instance your employees, you are more likely to achieve your desired goal as they are able to work hard and bring on board their best ways which becomes beneficial to your business. You must work in harmony with everyone including the community within which you operate, that way they there is goodwill which is transferred onto the work and its growth.

Helps you reach the right target

As a fashion designer, your target markets are usually those who are interested in your buying and wearing your clothes. In order to reach such people, you need to communicate effectively using the right channels to reach them. With the good relationship with editors, bloggers, journalists, marketers etc you are able to create strategic visibility for your brand using the right channels thereby reaching your targeted market.

Puts you in a strong position when customers are making buying decision

In an age where social media is king, word of mouth is key. The kind of relationship you have with your customers influence what they say about you. Good relationships, loyalty and referrals are the order of the day. Many people buy products because of what they have heard about it. With that achieved, work at building a strong relationship with them such that they become loyal to the brand and then end up referring their friends to purchase as well.  

Easier access to funding

For startups looking to attract investors and some funding for their young fashion businesses, having a good relationship with the various stakeholders opens up opportunities for growth. With clarity on the company’s vision statement and mission, investors become confident of your business and possibly will want to invest in them.

The important thing to remember is that the earlier you build good relationships with the right publics for your brand, the better your chances at positioning your brand for opportunities that will further leap the fortunes of your company.

Through a mix of effective communications, good customer service and appreciation, feedback mechanisms and proactive engagements, you’ll be well on your way to being able to accomplish more as a strong fashion brand.

Faith Senam Ocloo

Fashion Public Relations 

Fashion I Beauty I Lifestyle I Arts

Targeting the right customer for your fashion brand

Photo Credit: Shotbyese

There are many fashion businesses in Ghana that are still yet to define which segment of the fashion market they belong or target. Be it a luxury or mass consumer brands, knowing who your customers are sets the tone for success of your fashion business.

Understanding your customers means knowing their interests, needs, demographics, lifestyle and purchasing power amongst others. Every aspect of your brand’s marketing has to correlate with your ideal customer. Your brand identity, positioning, attributes and brand building process are better developed and guided by what you know about your potential customers.

This implies that, knowing your target market helps you right from the start till you are able to achieve your overall brand and business goal. Once a decision is made to launch your own fashion brand, this should be clearly answered; who is your target market?

For many entrepreneurs, they think it’s best to target as many as possible. But the truth is that you will be spending lots of money producing and sending your designs to everywhere and most probably the wrong places. Especially because you have failed to know who your customers are and how to get to them. When the right targeting is done, you are able to position your brand advantageously to sell and eventually grow your business.

The ultimate goal of every business is to sell and make money. No matter how you could be producing the best collections or designs that could look good on almost any fashionable woman or man, when you fail to know how to match your designs and brand to the right customers, you could definitely be missing the ultimate goal. 

As a Fashion PR representative for one of the leading fashion brands in Ghana, we have had several invitations to participate at trade shows or pop up events. Being a high-end to mid class brand, we carefully analyze the event and anticipate the kind of people the event is targeting. Are they the kind of people we want to reach? Will they be interested in our designs when they attend the event?  Will people be able to afford or buy our pieces when they come there? These are some of the questions we try to answer before accepting or declining the invitation. You don’t need to be everywhere just because you have been invited. 

Be it a luxury brand or mass market brand, carefully analyze where you want your brand to be and decide what is best for your brand. For instance exhibitions, pop up events, sales events are best for mass market brands whereas, private sales, presentations are best of luxury brands.

The success of any business is knowing where and how to get your product to your customers and the best part is they being willing to pay to get that product because it meets their needs. This means that knowing and understanding your customer’s needs helps you to plan your marketing and sales strategy to your advantage and grows your fashion business into new markets and territories.

Faith Senam Ocloo 
Fashion Public Relations 
Fashion I Beauty I Lifestyle I Arts

Engaging Influencers for your brand

Selinabeb

Many marketing experts have predicted influencer marketing to skyrocket in 2017. This trend which scaled up in 2016 is tipped to be the next big thing for many brands as social media is growing a new breed of influencers whose following across several media platforms have become useful for Public Relations and marketing campaigns. Ghanaian fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands should consider exploring this trend this year if it hasn’t been started yet.

Firstly, understand what influencer marketing is and how useful it will be to your brand strategy. Social media influencers have come about as a result of individuals taking advantage of the enormous opportunities abound on the social media to position themselves as influencers or thought leaders in their niche area. While some may start off as just posting and creating personal profiles online, others have activated business opportunities for such achievements.

Based on a brand’s marketing and PR strategy, these social media influencers have become very useful in fulfilling their campaign goals. In a recent survey by Schlesinger Associates for Augure, 84% of marketing and communications professionals worldwide said they plan on launching at least one influencer campaign within the next 12 months. Marketers and PR experts are taking advantage of this trend to give their brands utmost mileage for their products and campaigns.

So the next guiding questions are; which influencers will they be targeting? Why will they be targeting them? What do these influencers bring on board to these brands?

Who will they be targeting?

Depending on which industry you are in, brands look out for personalities that don’t just have huge following based on numbers on their social media pages. What they look out for is the extent of engagement they gain on their posts. Personalities whose following and exposure is targeted at their very same kind of consumer; one they intend to reach with their product or service.

For instance, a clothing brand could engage the likes of a style and fashion blogger, similarly, sports brands could also engage footballers with good social media following. Social media influencers are known to have created personal brand profiles in their niche or area of expertise and are using various techniques, tools and platforms on social media to gain advantage over many million others. Once an influencer is identified, the terms of engagement are agreed upon to get the influencer to incorporate the brands value and offerings into their own social media strategy.

Why will they be targeting them?

In recent times, such personalities have proven to have the kind of target market that PR professionals and marketers are looking to reach with their product or services. Companies engage these known personalities who have lovely personalities that they can tap into for their product or services and who have become influencers/thought leaders in their specific field or industry. It is believed that when consumers see their favorite personalities with such brands, it resonates better with them and they are able to identify with these products.

The good thing with this is that, it is done subtly without it looking like an advertising. Brands have gain significant inroads to their target consumers as a result of influencer marketing campaigns.

What do these influencers bring on board?

This trend is gaining grounds and as such fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands should be ready to maximize these engagements they make with their influencers and thought leaders. They need to adopt strategies that organically feeds their products or services into the influencer’s way of doing things on their platforms. They just need to ensure that the right messaging is shared with the influencers in order to properly and effectively communicate the product’s proposition.  In the end, companies can benefit by reaching specific consumers and add some practicality to how consumers see their product or service.

Engaging influencers and thought leaders for campaigns are going to get more popular, more profitable and more competitive hence there is the need to join in and cash in for your brand.

Faith Senam Ocloo 

Fashion Public Relations 
Fashion I Beauty I Lifestyle I Arts

10 Fashion Brands in Ghana that pushed the PR Button in 2016

As I did last year, I shared my 10 fashion brands in Ghana I thought have pushed various aspects of the communication mix to get their brand out there. This year has been not been an impressive one for many fashion brands. 

That notwithstanding, some few brands have still managed to push further and keep working to create some visibility for their brand. Some established brands are fading off whiles some emerging brands have made good in roads this year and 2017 could only get better for them.

Below are my 10 Fashion brands in Ghana that have worked pretty hard this year to put their brand on the radar and create brand presence both online and offline through fashion events and shows, lookbook/collection launch, product/celebrity  placements, media features, awards amongst others.

1.    Sima Brew

This brand has become the go to for many female celebrities. There was no single major event in 2016 that won’t see a celebrity in a Sima Brew Gown. Celebrities such as Selly Galley, Zynnell Zuh, Berla Mundi, Becca, Joselyn Dumas amongst others have been seen in one Sima Brew dress or the other.

The brand also won Red Carpet Designer at the Glitz Style Awards 2016 and Designer of the Year at the Ghana Fashion Awards and also showcased at the Glitz Africa Fashion Week 2016. With such remarkable brand positioning, 2017 can only get better for this brand.

2.    Abrantie The Gentleman

This brand is almost becoming one of the strongest brands in Ghana. They have remain consistent over the last couple of years. They launched 2 collections in the year; AYEYI and GMAN Collection with a buzz on both traditional and social media.

ABT The Gentleman showcased at the SA Menswear Week, African Fashion Week Amsterdam, Durban Fashion Fair and Mercedes Benz African Fashion Festival. The brand was also nominated as Designer of the Year at Glitz Style Awards and Ghana Fashion Awards and won Designer of the Year at Afroma Awards. Their brand visibility this year is commendable.

3.    Totally Ethnik

Totally Ethnik one of the top fashion brands in Ghana have launched 2 collections this year; Dolce Vita and Colors of the Earth which gained several features in top fashion blogs and also generated several media buzz.

Totally Ethnik showcased at the Mercedes Benz African Fashion Festival and Glitz Africa Fashion Week. They were also nominated for Glitz Style Awards and Afroma Awards as Designer of the Year.

The brand have worked in creating not just presence in Ghana but also in Lagos, Abidjan, Kampala, Kigali, Paris, Geneva by stocking their pieces in shops and also organized private sales events in several cities. Celebrities such as Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, Bolinto, Sandra Ankobia, Toke Makinwa have been spotted rocking a Totally Ethnik dress. I see this brand making greater strides in the coming year.

4.    Atto Tetteh

This brand is one of the emerging brands that have made great inroads this year. They started off the year participating at the Accra Men’s Fashion Week and then at the Glitz Africa Fashion Week. Their 2016 collections Tohazie and Artisan have been really impressive.

They were nominated as Emerging Designer at the Glitz Style Awards and won Emerging Designer at the Ghana Fashion Awards. Celebrities such as Stephen Appiah and Okyeame Kwame have been spotted in an Atto Tetteh outfit. With such progress made already, we can look forward to better 2017.

5.    Christie Brown

Being one of the ‘role models’ in modern day Ghanaian fashion, Christie Brown has managed to still keep up with being on the list of top fashion brands that have still been pushing hard to keep up with their brand presence. Even though this brand did not participate in any fashion show all year through in Ghana, they however launched 2 collections which created a buzz among fashion lovers all over including a feature in the Teen Vogue.

6.    Charlotte Prive

Charlotte Prive this year worked on making their brand visible at most trade and exhibition events held all year through as this earned them great brand presence within the fashion space. They won Designer of the Year at Glitz Style Awards and also participated at Flower and Garden Show event organized by Stratcomm Africa.

7.    Studio 189

This brand which recently opened its shop in Accra launched its first collection in 2013. They recently showcased at the Lagos Fashion and Design Week, being the only brand from Ghana to have participated at that event. They have gained several media features among which were a feature in vogue.

8.    Selinabeb

One of the very few accessory brand, Selinabeb has continued to create visibility for its fashion brand by introducing a collection called the Stars Collection which featured several top Ghanaian celebrities such as Sandra Ankobia, Joselyn Dumas, Berla Mundi, Kokui Serlomey and Victoria Michaels.

They participated at the African Jewelry and Accessory Fashion Week and Glitz Africa Fashion Week and also won High End Fashion Accessory at the Feminine Ghana Achievements Awards and also participated at several trade fairs among which was the annual Guba Expo event in London.

9.    AfroMod Trends

Being a ready to wear line, Afromod Trends brand’s marketing strategies have made it the go to brand for many smart and easy going women. Their collections for 2016 Elegance Fugu and Canvas of Dreams gained some media attention.

Celebrities such as Sandra Ankobiah, Naa Ashorkor, Yaayaa are mostly seen wearing Afromod Trends at different events and created some visibility for the brand.

10.  Brommon Bespoke Menswear

Brommon Menswear is one of the top handmade suits based in Ghana.  The brand has become a strong force within the menswear space. Prior to its launch and after its launch mid this year, the bespoke brand has position itself as a go to for menswear style inspiration. Personalities such as Nana Asante Bediatuo and Bola Ray, Stephen Appiah have been seen severally in a Brommon piece.

My expectations for 2017

Going into 2017, I wish designers and creative entrepreneurs be more creative through research, learning and investing in building strong and recognizable brands that match global brands.

By Faith Senam Ocloo

The writer is the founder of E’April Public Relations, a boutique PR firm. Senam is a fashion public relations specialist with interest in fashion, beauty and lifestyle. She can be reached on +233272686959, faithsenam@gmail.com, @senamapril on Instagram and @faithsenam on Twitter.

Kindly note photos used here are not my personal photos