Entertainment of Friday, 1 July 2011

Source: Samuel Baah/Flex Newspaper

Celebrity Ambassadors In Ghana: Do They Live To Expectation?

Ghana is gradually coming to terms with the fact that Arts and Entertainment play key role in nation building and that no country has really been recognized without the involvement of the celebrated personalities in the entertainment industry in national activities.

It is in the light of this that many at time cooperate entities, political parties, and many other great institution who want to achieve results in anything they do will name a celebrity an ambassador-so that the person will use his name and personality to convince his/her fans to undertake a project which is of interest to the institution in question.

An ambassador as defined by the Macmillan English Dictionary is someone who is considered to represent an activity, organization, company etc. My little marketing knowledge tells me that in choosing an ambassador, you have to look at someone who has a large fan base and commands a lot of respect in his/her field of endeavour so that anything they say or want to embark on will be accepted by the society without any intolerance.

Sometimes, I begin to wonder how some of these people are selected from the lot to become the ambassadors. With no reference to a particular person, I think a critical search would have to be made in doing this so that it would not appear as if the chosen ones had links with the authorities in question, hence their appointment. Because the mention of some names as ambassadors alone for a particular activity, brand or company, is in itself a failure not to talk about the competence of the individual in the field he/she is going to operate in.

Glo's entry to Ghana saw the signing of many celebrated personalities like Becca, Asem, Reggie Rockstone, Tinny, Efya, Van Vicker and a host of others who will to my best of knowledge help sell the Glo brand. Before then MTN had signed Samini, Okyeame Kwame, and others. The winners or will I say the queens of beauty pageants are made the ambassadors of various social problems and activities so that they can use their position and platform as beauty queens to solicit for sponsorship to attempt solving the menace, with the queen of Face of Tertiary campaigning against street children.

Some few weeks ago, Joy FM Drive time host, Kwabena Anokye Adisi a. k. a. Bola Ray and the boss of Empire Entertainment was outdoored as the National Drivers Academy (NDA's) ambassador for Driver Education and Training with support from the National Road Safety Commission. (NRSC), Driver and Vehicular Licensing Authority (DVLA), Government Technical Training Center (GTTC) and the Ministry of Transport.

Nana Boro of “Aha ye de” fame has also been named by Prompt Ghana as the ambassador for the campaign against malaria and he has support from the USAID and the Ghana Health Service. Many artistes on their own prerogative have also named themselves ambassadors of various problems of the society.

With their main aims being giving back to society what it has given them. Okyeame Kwame is the ambassador for Hepatitis B, Yvonne Nelson is fighting against Glaucoma, Obour sometime was the ambassador for the fight against road accidents, Asem used his “school dey be” track to promote education in Ghana which saw him touring most of the senior high schools with his campaign.

I am not really sure who became the first ambassador for a company of an activity in Ghana but my problem is what have these personalities been doing after they have been named the ambassadors for their various activities or institutions. Most of them do nothing more than giving speeches during events organized by their respective institution which they sometimes do not have any ideas how the said events were even organized.

Michael Essien used his platform as a campaigner for peace to organize a match in Ghana between the World 11 and the Africa 11 and I hear he has started embarking on some projects with the proceeds of the match.

What have you done for the past year you were made the ambassador of your field? What are you doing to give back to society as a celebrity? What have you planned to do for mother ghana in general as an ambassador? Shame on you if you don't have concrete answers to these questions.-you are a failure to the society. I rest my case.