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Campaign Ambassadors? No: Hero Figures!
Words such as spokesperson or ambassador each carry their own meaning and imply a certain role: someone speaking on behalf of an organisation, or someone representing its values.
At CREATED Agency, we prefer the term “hero figure” when identifying campaign ambassadors. For us, embodying a story is a powerful act. You are not simply carrying a message or acting as a representative of an organisation: you are the hero of your own story.
This framing is intentional. It recognises the agency, dignity and experience of the people who become the faces of a communication campaign. Rather than positioning them as vehicles for a message, we centre them as individuals whose lived realities and voices give meaning and authenticity to the story being told.
As communication experts, we know that words shape perception. The language we choose influences how stories are told, how audiences connect with them, and how the people at the heart of these stories see themselves. That is why we deliberately use the term hero figure because stories are most powerful when those who live them are recognised as the protagonists.
What Do We See on Nonprofit Social Media?
Have you ever taken a look at the LinkedIn and Instagram accounts of actors in the nonprofit world such as NGOs, development and government agencies, or think tanks? Let me tell you what you will notice.
You will often see a lot of faces. Dozens, sometimes hundreds of people from the organisation or receiving its services. Often, these faces appear only once, attached to a single story. Or the opposite happens. You see no faces at all. Just images paired with strong text, but without any human presence.
This is one of the biggest communication challenges for the nonprofit sector: how do you humanise your communication? How do you select the right ambassadors? Nonprofit organisations talk about a wide range of issues. From women’s rights to humanitarian crisis response to the rights of marginalized communities. To communicate about these topics and the projects they implement around the world, organisations often hesitate.
Should they give the microphone to their technical experts working inside the organisation, or to the people on the ground and the beneficiaries?
Added to this dilemma is an essential ethical question: implementing a decolonial, anti-racist, and empowering approach so that the people directly concerned by these issues can share their own perspectives. In practice, most nonprofit actors do not choose. In their communications, all voices blend together. In the media, spokespersons multiply. And in the end, nothing truly stands out. The right campaign ambassadors can change this.
Why Faces Matter in Communication
You might say: it is easy to criticise. What do you propose instead? Let’s go back to the basics.
Why do we need campaign ambassadors in communication? If a nonprofit speaks loudly but without a face, no one will listen. Communication research shows that humans need to connect with another humans in order to listen to and connect with a story. This is the whole point of storytelling that communication and marketing schools emphasize so often. This is why selecting effective campaign ambassadors is non-negotiable.
A story needs a person to tell it. But not just any person, and not just any story. In 2026, authenticity is one of the most important criteria for successful communication. The person telling the story must genuinely be connected to it. We need to feel their emotions and empathize with them. That emotional connection is what motivates people to mobilise and offer support. Authenticity cannot be faked, and neither can genuine campaign ambassadors.
When “Authenticity” Fails
We saw this recently with a TikTok video from McDonald’s. The video follows typical TikTok codes. The CEO speaks directly to the camera and presents the latest product from the American fast-food chain. He insists that he is not eating the meal just for the video and that it is actually his lunch.
Yet the video quickly went viral for the wrong reasons. It was widely mocked and parodied online. On paper, all the TikTok codes were present: face-to-camera content, a person addressing a community, an attempt to appear accessible, and a glimpse into everyday life. But as a campaign ambassador, the CEO failed.
So why did it fail? Because the video is not authentic. The CEO clearly is not a TikTok user, and even less a content creator. Instead of acknowledging that and perhaps joking about it, he tries to pretend otherwise. You can feel the discomfort. His speech is hesitant and awkward.
Then he begins to justify himself. Why does he feel the need to convince us that he will eat this burger for lunch? And then comes the worst moment: the fake bite. He takes a tiny nibble from the burger and says to the camera, “What a big bite!” But it is not. The audience is not fooled.
If the CEO had been guided by a communications agency, the advice would have been simple: be authentic. When do you actually eat at McDonald’s? With whom? Are you a big eater? A real-life moment could have been filmed. And if the CEO does not eat that burger, then simply he is not the right hero figures for that campaign. That does not make him a bad CEO. What matters is that the story you tell is authentic. Maybe his daughter loves that burger. In that case, she should be the one as a campaign ambassador in front of the camera.
@nyourfacetv McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski goes viral after seeming reluctant to eat his own burgers—he takes a tiny bite, looks uncomfortable, and calls the food ‘product.’ 👀 🍔 😳
Authentic Storytelling in the Nonprofit Sector
The same lesson applies to nonprofits as to businesses. Good storytelling starts with authenticity. Choose the person who genuinely lives the situation you want to talk about.
But authenticity alone is not enough. The approach also matters. In communication, it is very easy to fall into tokenism. Imagine your development agency has implemented a project improving access to education in Roma communities in northeastern Romania. A sixteen-year-old girl who benefited from the program agrees to share her story. Authentic communication must also be ethical and empowering. Research by Abhishek Bhati invites us to reflect on the place we give to the people concerned by our narratives. As communicators, how do we ensure they are treated with dignity, without being instrumentalized, and without falling into pity-based narratives that strip them of their agency?
How to Build Ethical and Empowering Storytelling with Campaign Ambassadors
- Start with an informal conversation with the young woman. The goal is for her to tell her story naturally and share her experience. But do not reduce her to her story or her emotions. Ask about her ideas, her messages, and her vision. Position her as an actor in her own life rather than someone simply receiving services from a project. This is the foundation of ethical campaign ambassadors.
- Once this information is gathered, the communication team can suggest filming locations that make sense to her. The process should be aconversation and a co-creation. On the day of the shoot, plan to record several takes. This helps the person speaking on camera feel more comfortable, experiment with different expressions, and ultimately sound more natural and authentic.
- Another important point is to avoid the one-time story trap. Too often organisations produce one video for one project with one face that the audience will never see again. Instead, plan ahead and create a series of content around this person and the impact of the project.
- Humanise your communication by building a relationship between your audience and this young woman. One day she might meet your key audiences such as funders or decision-makers. They will be far more inclined to listen to her because they will already feel they know her through the stories they have seen.
What About Institutional Campaign Ambassadors?
But what about institutional communication led by the NGO director, the think tank president, or the development agency program director?
Choosing a hero figure must satisfy the authenticity requirement of the story you want to tell, but it must also align with your objectives and target audience. From a CEO, president, or director, we do not expect an emotional testimony from the field. We expect analysis, perspective, and leadership. A broader view and a strategic or political vision.
We do not want leaders pretending to be on the ground when they are not. We want them to speak from their real position. In this case, investing in a high-level institutional hero figure for the organisation is essential. This person should be well media-trained and able to represent the organisation to the media, donors, partners, and sometimes audiences on social media.
Having a face makes institutional communication easier. People associate that face with the organisation and can develop an emotional connection with the hero figure. Many nonprofit organisations are hesitant to embody their communication in a single person. It feels counterintuitive for organisations that value decentralized, democratic, and horizontal approaches.
As a result, they multiply hero figures depending on the topic. In the end, no one becomes recognizable to journalists, funders, or audiences. This approach simply does not work.
Finding the Right Balance
Organisations need to make a choice, but they can create a balance. Institutional communication can be embodied by a high-level leader within the organisation. At the same time, local impact can be embodied by beneficiaries through an empowering and decolonial approach.
In this model, individuals control their own narratives, become advocates, and build a relationship with audiences through recurring content over time. This balance exists and it works. However, it requires strategic thinking, a medium- and long-term communication vision, and strong coherence across communication plans.
The Role of Communication Agencies
This is where communication agencies play a crucial role. They help organisations think strategically, plan ahead, build relationships, produce content aligned with organisational values, and ensure long-term follow-up.
Through these collaborations, the nonprofit sector can build communication that is human, embodied, impactful, and mobilizing. Such communication helps demonstrate real-world impact, expand support especially during fundraising campaigns, and develop storytelling that builds lasting relationships with audiences.
At CREATED Agency, this is how we approach developing your one-year campaign. First, we start with strategy. Before anything else, we make sure we clearly understand where you want to go, what you aim to achieve, and who you want to reach: your target audience. Together, we define a strategic plan with clear objectives, audiences, and desired outcomes.
Once the strategy is in place, we move to the communication plan: shaping the concept of your campaign, defining the formats and approaches, and addressing the key question: who will be your heroes? Throughout this process, we bring our creativity and our multidisciplinary team together to elevate your messages into a powerful and impactful campaign.
We will work with you to identify the people best suited to tell your story: beneficiaries, members of your team, the CEO, or sometimes an external influencer who can bring credibility, energy, or a fresh perspective.
At CREATED, we take a human-centred approach. We look for authentic, real-life stories and hero figures that evoke genuine emotions. These emotions are brought to life through the way we guide people in front of the camera, how we frame each scene, place the lights, and edit videos and photos. Every detail matters, because it shapes the authenticity and emotional impact of your story, and this is where our expertise truly shines.
To go further, you can explore our latest case study on supporting the communication strategy of GIZ here.
