What is a Brand Advocate?

“A Brand Advocate engages publicly in supporting or recommending behavior on behalf of a brand.”

-DHPB. (2024). ‘What is a Brand Advocate?’ Retrieved from https://dhpb.co/brandadvocate

Examining the Definition

‘Recommendation Behavior‘

The specific issue in defining a Brand Advocate is how narrow is it acceptable to go in your definition. Most definitions within marketing for Brand Advocate are quite narrow. Consider the following:

  • “A brand advocate is someone who elevates your brand through word of mouth marketing”
  • “[They are] individuals who love your brand share their positive sentiment about your product or service to their followers”
  • “Brand advocates are people who promote your brand thanks to the power of word-of-mouth marketing”

In contrast, consider the general definitions of an ‘advocate’:

  • “A person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy.”

Clearly I have taken the more general definition, and below I will argue against using the two major components of the more specific marketing definitions. In this section, I differentiate ‘Word of Mouth’ from ‘Recommendations’ more generally.

‘Word of Mouth’ is generally understood as being related to communication between people via voice (or a proxy like text or phone call). For example, if you say that you heard of a business via ‘Word of Mouth’ my expectation would be that someone literally told you about it.

In the age of social media, it seems acceptable to extend ‘Word of Mouth’ somewhat to seeing a post of a friend or a family member. However, the definition of ‘Word of Mouth’ cannot be endlessly extended to any type of recommendation. Consider the following continuum:

  1. Getting a recommendation about a Restaurant from a Friend in physical conversation
  2. Getting a recommendation about a Restaurant from a Friend as a text
  3. Seeing a recommendation for a restaurant on Instagram from a friend
  4. Reading a good review online about the restaurant
  5. Seeing a recommendation for a restaurant on Instagram from an Influencer
  6. Using a ‘4.5 out of 5’ stars review with no text as a recommendation
  7. Reading an AI generated summary of the reviews available online

If you are like me, the further through the list you get – the less sure that the example is an example of Word of Mouth. In my continuum of examples, I’ve tried to move away from the physical relationship of the recommender and the recommendee gradually. In my view, I think most people would agree that once you get to not knowing the original recommender, hearing their voice or even reading anything they actually ever said – its no longer an example of Word of Mouth. It may still be an example of a recommendation, however.

I think marketers like ‘Word of Mouth’ because it makes the ultimate ‘dream experience’ for a brand clear. That is, the fever dream that people everywhere are walking around talking to everyone about their brand. I don’t however think that it covers enough ground compared to the more general ‘recommendation’ definition.

But is recommendation sufficient? Or do you need another word.

‘Supporting… Behaviour‘

The majority of the behaviour which is considered ‘advocacy’ is definitely mainly around recommendation, but there are examples of ‘Advocacy’ which don’t even seem to fall into the definition of purely a ‘recommendation’. For example,

  1. Using the brand’s stickers on your laptop
  2. Regularly giving useful feedback to a brand
  3. Walking to the brand’s shop that is further away to buy this brand’s products directly
  4. Always looking at a new season when it releases.
  5. Buying from the brand repeatedly, if this isn’t a ‘forced choice’*

Supporting a brand with a sticker on a laptop, seems closer to ‘supporting’ a brand, compared to what could be called a ‘recommendation’. This person is not directly or explicitly recommending a product, but this certainly seems like an example of advocacy for that brand.

Therefore, as well as ‘recommendation’ it is important to include support which is more general.

‘Publicly’

Above, I gave an example of purchasing (within certain conditions) as well as looking at newly released seasons. These behaviours by themselves are not necessarily advocacy. Consider the following:

  1. You repeatedly buy a specific product as its addictive, and resent the company and brand.
  2. You look at new seasons of clothes out of habit, but are ashamed to like the style of the brand and/or do not agree with the brand’s larger ESG stance.

The inability or dislike of revealing these tastes or brands publicly seems to exclude an individual from being included as a ‘Brand Advocate’.

If you are supporting a brand, but do it unwillingly, you are not a ‘Brand Advocate’.

Conclusion

I support a more general view of a ‘Brand Advocate’ than the rest of the industry, driven by the fact that laymen understanding of the definition is much wider than marketers tend to include.

It is also worth saying that this is the most general term for someone that recommends a brand, both terms like ‘Brand Ambassador’ and ‘Influencer’ are much more narrow.

*Buying is not sufficient for advocacy but I believe would be included most of the time. Consider the difference between buying from a monopoly vs buying a product from among a sea of competitors at the grocery store. The purchase of a product would be said to be advocacy if there was a specific choice involved. The term ‘supporting’ is broad enough to include a purchase but specific enough to rule out monopoly purchases.