Six Jayco Ascend Ambassadors came to the Jayco Homecoming earlier this month in Nashville, Tennessee. Some brought their pooches who wagged up to receptive dealers on the show floor.
The event marked the first time the ambassadors met in person with Jayco dealers. The Ascend Ambassador program was unveiled in January at the Tampa RV show.
In total, Jayco currently partners with 11 brand ambassadors. About 3.5 million followers devote themselves to reading posts by the group.
Jayco Ambassadors are not influencers like Kim Kardashian, Jayco Marketing Vice President Trey Miller said. While influencers may have hordes of followers, they are not the best choice for helping to sell big-ticket items like RVs.
“We have chosen to partner with authentic users of our product. They go out and talk to their peers, in the form of an ambassador for our company, and tell them why they like using their Jayco,” Miller said. “Peer-to-peer recommendation is so much more valuable than a celebrity endorser or even brand reps going out to tell people about a product. People like to hear reviews from their peers.”
Once dealers learned of the ambassadors’ authenticity, they began to find their social media campaigns beneficial, Miller said. Most ambassadors have current Jayco floorplans. The ambassadors’ choices drive leads and traffic to dealers because their posts are like recommendations from friends sitting around the campfire, but amplified, he said.
Ambassadors Jessica Hatch of Snowdogsvlogs; Sarah Carson, thesupercolliesmom; Mike Pfeiffer of Last Line of Defense; Sarah and Derek; Aaron and Archer and Jason and Alison Takacs attended the Homecoming to check out the 2023 RV lines and create live posts.
“We are hearing a clamoring from the dealers,” Miller said. “They have customers coming in mentioning that they follow the Last Line of Defense blog, for example, and they saw his unit and they want something similar.”
Hatch, a Jayco owner for 18 years, visited the show with her Husky Eleanor. She and her husband are part-time ambassadors who travel with three dogs.
“Of all the dream brands I wanted to work with, Jayco was the top,” Hatch said. “We are here to post video, introduce people to Jayco brands and let people know you can bring your dogs with you. Traveling with dogs is much easier in an RV.”
The manufacturer receives applications for ambassadorships daily, Miller said. Jayco considers each application carefully to ensure the ambassadors are a good fit for the company’s culture, values and goals. The ambassador community is part of a larger Ascend Community program that includes a recognized supplier community and a recognized owner community.
“The combination of ambassadors, owners’ groups, suppliers, and obviously us, as Jayco, it is a huge group of people and it makes us stronger,” Miller said. “Throughout that community we can make things better, come up with new solutions or innovations. In the short time since we created this, we have seen some huge things come out of it.”
