Happy Employees are the Best Brand Ambassadors

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Have you ever encountered a brand ambassador? These are the folks from companies like Zipcar who go around giving out free swag so that you feel good enough about the Zipcar brand to become a customer. That’s a fairly base summary but don’t let appearances fool you — brand evangelism is a big deal. Brand ambassadors almost never actually sell anything. Their entire job is consumer advocacy. As Philip Krim writes at Mashable, many companies outsource this sort of work. Krim’s company, the sleep startup Casper, doesn’t. He argues in that Mashable piece that a company that treats its employees well already has a fleet of brand ambassadors on staff.

Krim lists several key strategies for keeping workers happy: honesty and integrity, transparency, work-life balance, and a knockout training program. As CEO of Casper, Krim tries to make sure he walks the walk when he paints the Casper brand as innovative and fun:

“Just because you make a product that everyone uses doesn’t mean it’s fun. And just because you say you’re fun, doesn’t actually mean you’re having fun. Paradoxically, being fun takes work.”

Take a look at the full piece (linked below) and let us know what you think in the comments below. Are there any specific things your company does that boosts your loyalty (and therefore your potential as a brand evangelist)?