Organizations select brand ambassadors as the ‘face’ of their company or brand. The ideal candidate for playing such a role is a community tastemaker who plans on taking advantage of established relationships and community networks for marketing the brand through word of mouth. A company’s ‘face’ represents the company at particular events in which he/ she distributes sample products or carries out product demonstrations. Brand ambassadors are passionate, sociable persons who enjoy significant social media presence accompanied by a large- or at least mid- sized network. They already approve of and have adequate knowledge about the brand they represent. Usually, brand ambassadors’ chief function is representing products at diverse settings. Furthermore, they help create content, and engage in marketing and event planning activities. Lastly, effective brand ambassadors promote products using their accounts on social networking sites, where they create awareness by word of mouth and offer details on novel products/services’ features (Sonntag, 2017).
Incident background
The key responsibility of an individual who is made the face of a company is representing it positively – i.e., bringing positive publicity for the company. The company’s reputation suffers if any undesirable action or speech is performed by the brand ambassador. Such errors have adverse effects and generate unplanned crises.
Consider, for instance, former deceased Fox News head, Roger E. Ailes’s case. Ailes may be credited with shaping the images which brought victory to three Republican presidential contenders. He was a central and frequently-daunting force on the US conservative politics scene until his ousting from Fox News in the year 2016, after charges of sexual harassment were made against him by multiple parties (Stempel, 2017).
General sexism, sexual harassment, and misbehavior related claims cropped up on media channels almost every week after Gretchen Carlson, an ex- Fox News host, sued Ailes for sexually harassing her – a charge that was denied by Ailes. Though Fox News claimed it would conduct investigations into the matter, it had complete confidence in its leader. A couple of years before Carlson’s allegation, four other female employees at Fox News reported Ailes had abused his position and made inappropriate racy comments or undesirable sexual advances towards them. After Carlson, over a dozen females got in touch with Nancy Erika Smith – the defendant’s lawyer – and lodged detailed sexual harassment accusations against Ailes, spanning from the 60s to the present date (Sherman, 2016). ….....
Littleton, C. (2016, September 06). Why Fox Moved Quickly to Settle Gretchen Carlson Sexual Harassment Suit. Retrieved September 13, 2018, from https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/gretchen-carlson-fox-news-settlement-sexual-harassment-1201852950/
Sherman, G. (2016, July 09). 6 More Women Allege That Roger Ailes Sexually Harassed Them. Retrieved September 13, 2018, from http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/six-more-women-allege-ailes-sexual-harassment.html
Sonntag, M. (2017, February 01). Brand Ambassador: Meaning, Job Description, Salary, & More. Retrieved September 13, 2018, from https://www.repsly.com/blog/field-team-management/brand-ambassador-job-definition-description-salary
Steel, E. (2017, November 20). Fox Establishes Workplace Culture Panel After Harassment Scandal. Retrieved September 13, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/business/media/fox-news-sexual-harassment.html
Stempel, J. (2017, November 21). 21st Century Fox in $90 million settlement tied to sexual... Retrieved September 13, 2018, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fox-settlement/21st-century-fox-in-90-million-settlement-tied-to-sexual-harassment-scandal-idUSKBN1DK2NI
