What businesses are appropriate for cartoon brand mascots?
Here’s the rule of thumb for when and when not to use a cartoon brand mascot. Keep in mind, ALL rules are meant to be broken.
Cartoon brand mascots work best when the product or service you are promoting is:
1. Hard to differentiate
2. Price sensitive
3. A non-luxury item
4. In the mature life cycle stage
5. Involves education/training
6. Boring/irritating/embarrassing
7. A virtual commodity
8. Sold in a highly competitive market.
A cartoon brand mascot may not be the best choice for:
1. Upscale luxury items associated with prestige (jewelry, champagne, furs)
2. Non-price sensitive items, very unique, hyper innovative
3. Services dealing with extremely serious matters (lawyers and funeral directors)
Selling anything is an exercise in story telling. The products that have super compelling, headline-grabbing stories, don’t need a mascot to get attention. In fact, might even detract from the real story. For the 99 percent of other businesses that have to fight through the average of 5,000 advertising messages people are exposed to on a daily basis, a cartoon mascot is the one thing that can help them stand out and separate them from the competition. “Oh that’s right! You’re the one that has that cute little…”
Here is a list of industries that cartoon mascots can be highly effective in: Accounting, Advertising, Agriculture, Apparel, Appliances, Automotive, Baking, Banking, Beverages, Biology, Boating, Child Care, Communications, Computer Technology, Construction, Consulting, Counseling, Dentistry, Education,, Electronics, Energy, Engineering, Entertainment, Foodservice, Forestry, Furniture, Government, Health Care, Hospitality, Housing, Industrial Applications, Janitorial, Lending, Manufacturing, Marketing, Medical, Mining, Parts, Pharmaceutical, Photography, Plastics, Plumbing, Publishing, Real Estate, Recreation, Repair, Restaurants, Retail, Sanitation, Security, Sports, Textiles, Toys, Training, Transportation, Utilities, and Wholesale.
