c. college brand aMbassadors

Overview

While the primary goal of our influencer marketing is to partner with notable individuals who have the credibility and capability to drive positive word-of-mouth and sales for Tower 28, we also want to interact directly with our target market and be more accessible to them. Forging authentic, genuine relationships with our customers will be integral to this campaign, considering that we found in our primary research that 72% of respondents learn about new makeup from their friends and general word-of-mouth. Therefore, to further catalyze word-of-mouth and achieve the overarching goal of increased brand awareness, our second tactic involves introducing a Tower 28 college brand ambassador program in universities across the United States.

Implementing the college ambassador program as part of the #CleanIsInclusive campaign will be a low-cost way for Tower 28 to acquire new consumers, generate buzz, and kick start the network effects that will lead to massive growth and adoption of their products. College campuses are also natural environments for developing, testing, and growing consumer products. Therefore, this will be a great opportunity for Tower 28 to gain feedback from its target market in real time.

As defined in “Advertising and Integrated Brand Promotion”, brand ambassadors are essentially consumers “who will become apostles for the brand” and “[spread] the brand gospel” (O’Guinn et al., 2019). Tower 28 will be enlisting a diverse group of students on college campuses who embody the #CleanIsInclusive campaign and reflect the Tower 28 core values of inclusivity, community, healthy fun, and clean living to promote Tower 28 and its products to their peers. The college ambassadors will further demonstrate that Tower 28 and “clean girl” makeup is not only attainable and limited to influencers or those who fit the typical aesthetic, but also for your everyday college student. The “clean” aesthetic includes and is ultimately for everyone.

Recruitment Process

The Tower 28 college ambassador program will first begin in college campuses within Tower 28’s hometown, the Los Angeles area (i.e. USC, UCLA, LMU, Occidental College, etc.), before expanding to other key cities. This strategy of first infiltrating schools in one major city with multiple college campuses will serve as a beta test or trial run of the program to observe what does and does not work on these campuses before implementing it in other key college cities.

The first step of the recruiting process will be to promote the ambassador program to gain a large pool of applicants. This will be done through the utilization of campus job boards, reaching out to the university career centers and major student clubs and organizations, as well as leveraging any alumni connections that current Tower 28 employees may have. Interested students will need to submit a written application where they will have to answer questions related to their passions for clean beauty and Tower 28, prior leadership experiences, and why they would be the best fit for the ambassador position. Based on the written application, applicants will be narrowed down and those who make it past this first stage will advance to the Zoom interview stage. Doing so will allow us to assess both verbal and non-verbal communication, as well as personorganization fit. Tower 28 will essentially be seeking 15-20 students per university from diverse backgrounds, who are outgoing, charismatic, seeking to be involved or well-connected on campus, want to redefine “clean beauty”, and demonstrate Tower 28’s core values.

Ambassador Tasks & Incentives

Tower 28’s college ambassadors will distribute affiliate and promo codes to their peers. These affiliate and promo codes will allow us to easily track how many sales each ambassador makes. With each sale, they will receive a 5% commission.

They will also be assigned weekly tasks that will essentially help spur wordof-mouth around campus and spread the #CleanIsInclusive campaign. Tasks include: Getting “X” amount of people to follow Tower 28’s Instagram, Creating TikToks that illustrate how they have used Tower 28’s products to redefine the “clean” aesthetic, Wearing and handing out Tower 28 swag, & Organizing sponsored social gatherings (i.e. Tower 28’s pop-ups).

Additionally, to further incentivize the ambassadors and make them feel more connected through exclusive access, we will be giving them free and discounted products and access to early versions of products.

Measurement of Effectiveness

The effectiveness of the college brand ambassador program will be evaluated by the following metrics:

• Number of Tower 28’s followers across social media platforms from the launch of the college brand ambassador program

• Attendance rates at organized sponsored events

• Number of sales generated by affiliate and promo codes