実ビジ・ディクテーション：9/14：Brand Ambassadors in Action(6)

S:In our current vignette Umemura Seiji has just returned from a trip to observe student business ambassadors at 2 ohio universities.

He described how Health and Beutity reps helped freshmen to move in, givegave away free goods, and sponcered a welcome dinner.

Was there anything like this, when you went to your colleage, Heather?

H:Not in this level, no. There were certainly veryvarious commercial promotions.

I remenbered being able to get a credit card quite easily and receiving coupons for local stores you got at orientation time. But there wasnt anything on the scale described in the vignette, or like I've seen in various articles lately. I was just reading about a major retailer, for for example, that buses new students to its stores for midnight shopping event.

S:So what's your opinion of involved this marketing by students for students?

H:I have to admit my gut reaction regarding this students brand ambassaders concept was not good. I really dont wanna see the colleage experience devolveing into a marketing event, heavily focusd on consumption.

Perhaps I've been'm being overly idealistic, but I do see the university years as a sacred time in many ways.

Never again will a person have that much time and freedom, to study such a dieverse range of subjects interact with such diverse range of people

And I can't shake the feeling that over comerciallization will tenkttake the experience.

I think its extremelly inportant for university administrators to keep an eye on studnet ambassadors' activities and make sure they don't interfere with the pursuit of the lersning and personal growth.

S:but they do seem to be many advantages for the students

H:True, I do see the arguments that working as brand ambasaddors can be benefitial

particularry when it comes to money.

The cost of the college keeps going up and more and more young people are having to take out heavy loans to pay for it.

Pitching for various companies could help some of them reduce the deaddebt burden they have to shoulder after leaving school.I had to take out student loan myself to help pay for college and ultimadely paid them back over 10 years after graduation.

If I'd been able to make a couple of thousand dollars a year as a brand aｍbassador that's money I would have been able to save or invest for future instead.

S:And as Alyce collins says students ambasaddors arehave a leg up when it comes to finding jobs, after graduation.

H:Also true. Young people the world over are struggline to find work and if being a student ambassador can help new graduates find gainful employment , good.

And I suppose it would help develp student's initiative, creativity and people skill in general.

As the vignette points out, it's vital that student ambassadrs be honest and upfront about what they are doing. But learning the fine arts of presentation and persuation ie convincing other people to see thing their way can only help them in life.

I was just reading about a student ambasaddor who hopefully will learn from her mistakes in that regard.

she worked for a major information techonlogy company and apparently posted about it so often on social media network. The people connected to her threatened to block her sometimes. A good demonstlation of how less is more when it ccomes to advertising.