Developing a set of assets for a brand ambassador

From product creating sales sheet to conducting sales webinars, and even leading product trainings, I aim to empower the sales teams with all the content they might need to succeed. Here's an example of my work with a brand ambassador.

🔍 Background

Destination Beverage has been a beverage importer and supplier in Singapore since 2013. Specialising in foreign brands, the start-up is also the agent for 11 brands, meaning that they have exclusive distribution and a mission of brand development on the Singapore market.

Ron Abuelo has been an agency way before I came in, however with a new marketing budget provided in the new fiscal year, one of my missions was to boost the sales.

Rum is a difficult sell on the Asian market, so the competition is tough for the brands, battling for the few rum fans in the region. That is why often, the big players such as Diplomatico or Plantation are the go-to brands that the patrons and therefore the outlets, lean towards.

🧭 Problem Definition

Given the restricted market, the difficulty was to determine the relevant marketing mix to upsell the rum experts, but also extend the scope and potentially reach new customers. Indeed, the cocktail clientele is large and has what it takes to be converted to consume rum.

📝 Contingencies

Difference of mindsets between the brand and the market. The headquarters of the brand are in Panama, and revenues are mostly generated from the Panamean and European markets - more profitable locations for rum.

Limited human resources. With a single person dedicated to the agency of 11 brands, and a single sales representative, it was difficult to guarantee the focus required by this brand. As much as Destination Beverage could provide support, create activities, the field work was just as important and was not viable if only performed from us.

🗺️ Solution

Need a market "on-site" expert. With limited human resources in our company and given the current trends in F&B, it became clear that the marketing budget should be focused on grooming a brand ambassador. Indeed, known from the community, and by being a user him/herself, it would build an organic credibility on the market, and even the region. The underlying condition is the motivation of the representative and a sales-oriented mind. This means that the content has to be attractive and innovative enough for him/her to be excited to work for, as well as a solid frame of work with a clear salary and concrete KPIs.

Shaping the marketing budget. When building the marketing budget, there were three priorities: getting a salary for the brand ambassador, providing him a trip to Panama to see on-site the production of the rum and saving to fund animation for an industry community which we called Casa Abuelo.

Developing a sales kit. Once the brand ambassador was identified and following his return from Panama, a sales kit was available for him to use:

• Product sales sheets

• Presentation of the brand customised with his own content

• KPI sheet including quaterly indicators such as number of outlets visited, number of events or promotions triggered...

• 1 Bottle of each expression for him to create his own recipes for each

• Tasting mats ready-to use

In addition, we came up with a catalog of the potential activations that outlets could be interested in: from rum tasting sessions to guestshifts, we summarized in a single document several formats that could easily be deployed for any outlet.

An example of popular activations is a product masterclass. There are plenty available on the island so we needed a unique selling-point. Moreover, when discussing with the hosting outlet, they informed us of their goal, which was to entertain their VIP customers with quality content. That is why we decided to focus the session not on the entire brand but on a limited-edition finish-cask collection. As an element of surprise, there was a pairing planned with Happy Cioccolato vegan chocolate truffles, specially crafted for the session as they contained the displayed rums. Take a look at some pictures of the session:

Click here to read further about the session.

Click here to see more pictures of the masterclass.

✅ Assessment

Demand generated and audience captured. The trip to Panama being in February, the plan was to use his social media to generate demand even before his return. Also, when we launched the masterclasses, the content quality was improved with the personnalised touch he brought, making the audience follow his own journey instead of a strict branded presentation.

Lead conversion put on hold. The best timeline to truly assess such a heavy initiative is at least a year, so it might be too early to truly tell. Moreover, by the time the brand ambassador returned, the leads generated were put on hold by the circuit breaker. However, what is encouraging is that before the start of the quarantine, we had a significant boost in the number of marketing initiatives and sales opportunities in the pipeline.

Limitations of the brand ambasador. In the configuration that was set, the brand ambassador was an asset to boost brand awareness, but pricing was out his scope. So early on, it was important for the brand to understand that his job was not necessarily to close deals, but get the market aware of the brand, see the value of the products and generate leads for our sales to follow.

Taking it a step further. After meeting a couple of brand ambassadors for various categories of products, I understand better the complete embodiement of a brand that he/she should be. Even though we had a good starting point, there are plenty of leverages that we could use to take it up a notch: business cards, social media account dedicated, online Youtube channel, merchandise...