Students of University of Ghana Business School couldn’t get enough of Samini’s lectures over the weekend; his lecture under the topic “Celebrity Brand Endorsement” supposed to run for an hour crept into 2 hours 15 minutes. The students wouldn’t let him go and requested for another lecture session with him on a next date (to be scheduled).
Elated Samini says he would be available to run a next lecture anytime they’re ready. Under the main topic, Samini touched on sub-topics like;
– What makes a Celebrity?
– Endorsement deals
– Optimizing celebrity endorsements, among others.
Samini who has been a brand ambassador for giant telephony company, MTN, for 8 years took the students through memory lane while he served for the network.
“You must be fully aware of what territorial limitations the contact can bring and you should know how it would come to affect your brand in the short term and long term. As a brand ambassador for MTN for 8 years I wasn’t allowed to show up at any event sponsored by a ‘competitor’ like Tigo, Vodafone, Airtel…etc. I believe I had worked hard enough and had all it took at that time to represent the brand MTN. And I was also cool with everything the brand MTN stood for so it was quite a simple deal worth a very good amount of money. There’s an obvious traffic from fans and the general public the moment a celebrity endorses a product or company. Automatically the brand begins to get to the local people through the star they so much adore. The influence is real. The endorser however is obliged to stay on top of his or her game to keep the contract going. Else the company is always ready to affiliate themselves with the next trending thing. Fair in all business standards if you ask me. In my opinion I don’t think there are any major issues with endorsement as I had a very fruitful and wonderful educative experience with Mtn. Once you know your intellectual property rights I’m sure you will be fine as a talent. And as a company or business looking into getting endorsements you must be prepared to work with the natural complicated nature of working with public figures especially if the person is from the creative arts world”, Samini lectures.
Samini however advised companies to “be flexible with how you restrict your ambassador. Be flexible so it promotes more collective gathering of multiple brands. The exclusivity sometimes restricts the artiste or celebrity and the brand, but if there’s some form of flexibility, it helps the brand and ambassador break new grounds or markets”, he concluded.
Samini plays Kumasi this Sunday, March 5, 2017 as part of Ghana’s 60th Independence Celebrations, hosted by Club Beer Ghana.
