Who should be your brand's ambassador?

By now, you've probably seen the video.

McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski posted a clip to his Instagram promoting the chain's new Big Arch burger. The idea was simple: CEO tries new product, CEO loves new product, everyone gets excited. What actually happened was something else entirely. Kempczinski holds up the burger, calls it a "product" — not a burger, not a meal, a product — takes what the internet described as the smallest bite in recorded human history, and smiles through what can only be described as a grimace.

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A post shared by Chris Kempczinski (@chrisk_mcd)

The comments came fast. "He definitely doesn't eat McDonald's." "That was the smallest first bite I've ever seen." Someone joked, "I'll take two units, please."

And look — I actually feel for the guy a little. He's a CEO. Running a company the size of McDonald's is a full-time job that has nothing to do with being charming on Instagram. But that's precisely the point. Putting him in that video (and then posting it!) was a marketing decision, and it was the wrong one. And it raises a question that a lot of brands — big and small — are quietly getting wrong:

Who should actually be the face of your brand's social media?

It Has to Be Both Things at Once

Here's the answer, and I want to be clear that it's two things working together — not one or the other.

Your brand's best social media ambassador is the person who is authentically passionate about what you do, and who can communicate that passion well. Both. At the same time. Because if you only have one, you end up with content that falls flat in very different ways.

Authentically passionate but a poor communicator? You get the McDonald's video. Someone who clearly has a connection to the brand in theory, but freezes up on camera, reaches for corporate language as a safety net, and ends up making the whole thing feel uncomfortable to watch. The passion might actually be there somewhere — but it never makes it to the screen.

Flip it the other way. Great communicator, zero genuine feeling for what they're selling? Now you've got a polished influencer who says all the right things and makes the audience feel nothing. That approach can move product in the short term — people click, they buy, they move on. But it doesn't build loyalty. It doesn't build a community. And the moment that influencer's contract ends or they post something off-brand, the whole thing evaporates. You didn't build a relationship with your audience. You rented one.

The sweet spot — the only place you actually want to be — is someone who loves your product and knows how to make other people feel that love too.

Authenticity Is the One Thing You Can't Fake

That's the uncomfortable truth about social media. Audiences have been marinating in content long enough to develop an almost instinctive radar for when something is real and when something is performance. You can coach delivery. You can do seventeen takes. You can write the tightest script in the world. But you cannot manufacture genuine enthusiasm, and any attempt to do so tends to read exactly like what it is.

Think about the difference between a restaurant owner who genuinely tears up talking about the dish their grandmother taught them to make, and a brand spokesperson who says "I'm so excited about this product" with the same energy as someone reading a terms-of-service agreement. One of those people makes you want to eat. The other makes you want to scroll.

Authenticity shows up in the details. It's the way someone's face changes when they take a real bite of something they love. It's the laugh that wasn't scripted. It's the moment where someone forgets the camera is there because they're genuinely caught up in telling the story. That's what resonates. That's what people share. And that's what builds the kind of trust that turns a casual viewer into a loyal customer.

Your brand ambassador doesn't have to be polished. They don't have to be famous. A local restaurant using their head cook to walk people through a dish can absolutely outperform a major brand using a hired celebrity — if that cook is the real deal. A small fitness studio putting their most passionate trainer in front of a phone camera will beat a glossy ad featuring someone who's never set foot in that gym. Passion is the variable that changes everything, and it's visible whether your budget is $500 or $500,000.

But Passion Without Communication Is Just Noise

Here's where it gets harder. Because genuine passion is necessary — but it isn't sufficient.

Content is a skill. Telling a story on camera, making someone feel something in 30 seconds, knowing how to frame a moment so the audience connects with it — these are all things that take practice and natural aptitude to do well. Not everybody has that. And the mistake a lot of brands make is assuming that if someone loves the product, the content will take care of itself.

It won't.

I'll be honest with you: I hate doing reels. I know my value, and it's behind the camera — not in front of it. My passion for filmmaking is real, but my face and my delivery reinforce that I'm better off being the one pointing the lens. Recognizing that about yourself isn't a failure. It's clarity. And brands that are willing to have that honest conversation about who in their orbit is actually built for this kind of communication — they're the ones who end up with content that works.

When a brand ignores communication as a skill and just puts the most enthusiastic person on camera without thinking about whether that person can actually deliver, you end up with content that embarrasses rather than elevates. And in a world where a single awkward video can go viral for all the wrong reasons, that's not a small risk. Just ask McDonald's.

The question isn't just who loves your brand. It's who can make a stranger love your brand in the time it takes to watch a short video.

So How Do You Find That Person?

Start by letting go of the idea that it has to be the person at the top. The founder, the CEO, the owner — they carry enormous institutional knowledge, and that matters. But social media doesn't reward org charts. It rewards presence. It rewards authenticity. It rewards whoever makes the audience feel like they're in on something good.

Look around your organization — or in your network — for the person who talks about what you do with a light in their eyes. The team member who can't help explaining your product to someone at a party. The collaborator who already creates content about your industry because they're just wired that way. These people are often overlooked precisely because they're not the most senior voice in the room.

Put a few people in front of a camera with a simple brief — tell me why this thing matters — and watch what happens. Some people will freeze. Some will be fine. A few might surprise you. That last group is who you're looking for.

And then, when you find them, trust them. Give them the story to tell, give them the space to tell it, and get out of the way.

The McDonald's video is already a punchline. But buried inside the joke is a real lesson about what social media actually rewards — and what it punishes. It doesn't care about your title. It doesn't care about your budget. It cares about whether the person on screen is real, and whether they can make you feel something.

Find that person. Put them in front of the camera.