IT”S never been so easy to get your product mentioned in the press and it’s been such an effective way to break through. Send some swag to a celebrity, get a picture or quote, and you’re in. Throw an event at a cool club, bring on the right planner, pay some celebs to show up at your launch, hire the right PR firm, and you’re good.

A fashionable tactic that uses armies of promoters, aka brand ambassadors, brand evangelists, reps and/or influencers, to launch messages into the market. Since it involves a database of consumers who are actually expecting to receive random marketing messages and ready to work on behalf of companies, it can be highly useful, especially because many young people today actually enjoy partaking in marketing campaigns.

How would it look to have a great special ambassador like reigning Miss Universe third runner-up Shamcey Supsup for Meralco’s “Ambassador of Light”? Every audience segment would be engrossed and the press would be excited to write a positive piece about her working closely with Meralco as it communicates its innovations to the public in its desire to improve the lives of its customers.

“I’ll be joining Meralco in their events as they bring light to rural areas and really bring in a new wave of technology in all their services,” she said. Being an architect and a board topnotcher at that, Shamcey has what it takes to help Meralco in bringing hope to many Filipinos and lightening up their lives.

The girl with the million-watt smile assumed the role of “Ambassador of Light” for Meralco during the recent opening ceremony of the Philippine Basketball Association’s 37th Season. And why wouldn’t she? After all, she is Shamcey Supsup.

The actual idea behind brand ambassadors makes sense. When it’s applied effectively, it can certainly produce tangible results. When companies need to bang louder and louder to get anyone to listen, it’s a function of the modern feedback loop: more noise is required to break through.

Shamcey is fortunate to have the freedom to choose what she does and doesn’t. If an idea is handed to her as some sort of pre-scripted idea based on what how they want her, she just won’t do it. She would like to do more than lend her pretty face to the famous brand’s products. She wants to create something inspiring in making countless women’s dreams come true. She strongly supports the advocacy on domestic violence against women.

A lot of people wanted to talk about Shamcey. Others wanted to know if she has already adjusted to the attention that comes with her celebrity status. Amazingly, even when they came from vastly different generations, they seemed to agree that Shamcey is a perfect illustration of her “tsunami walk”—what she did was so cool that it made her cool.

Celebrity sells. Nobody can deny that celebs are great branding tools. They get instant attention. And instant attention can mean instant awareness, which can mean instant traffic—and that can lead to sales or patronage. Stars have always been the consummate arbiters of taste and style, and their appeal has long been a great way to move merchandise.

Getting a brand some love in print has always been a powerful way to cut through the clutter. And since you’re far more likely to gain credibility and be noticed, if the goal is to make people aware of you, press works.

Take, for instance, a major marketing company this columnist knows of. This company was new to the field and extremely keen to the brand. With a hard-sell product, it’s particularly difficult to establish a point of difference. So to get a quick bang, they decided to find an actress, get her in some of their stuff and get that credit.

This company quickly found out that it was no longer good enough to lend a celebrity a priceless product. To get a celeb to wear their stuff on national TV, they’d have to pay a fee in the high of six figures or so. In the end, the company paid. Sure enough, the actress appeared the next day wearing their stuff in every gossip vehicle here on earth. They got tons of press, their not-so-well-known brand got a huge bump, and everyone was extremely pleased with themselves. As they said, it works.

Today, a company collects a network of ambassadors, and believes that by simply turning them on to a product, a trickle-down effect will take place. But then again, this columnist always wonders why more companies, especially big ones, don’t view their existing consumers and employees as brand ambassadors. These are the people who will really spread the word if given the right motivation and resources.

Bubuwit Squeaks

Pumpkin award

TO give out the exact opposite of excellence in advertising and public relations, the much- dreaded Kalabasa Awards, a squishy, squashy citation—since the recipients are hardly Cinderellas in the field of public relations and goodwill—is ready to be doled out to some PR practitioners who fail to live up to the profession’s name. Consider the PR coordinators who are so obvious in their prejudices against—and favoritism of—some media representatives. Some newsmen overheard one PR coordinator talking ill of one reporter of one publication in the presence of other reporters, only to jump back to the former’s table and act as if nothing was going on. Beware of this PR group who invites media to its events but back fights.