In this op-ed, SickDogWolfMan creative director Jess Wheeler explores why brand mascots and characters are proving to be one of the most effective tools for building long-term brand success. He argues that their real power isn’t in novelty, but in how they can unlock stronger strategy, sharper storytelling, and lasting brand memory when used for the right reasons.
Mascots are having a moment, and for good reason.
Major research firms like IPSOS and System 1 have reported brand mascots as being significantly more effective at driving long-term brand attention than celebrities and even, shock horror, logos. (Sometimes you can only make something so big with diminishing returns).
This has understandably resulted in more brands looking to create one of their own, with agencies now being approached with ‘we need a mascot’ briefs. The problem with this kind of thinking is that if building a brand were as simple as ticking a box, none of us would exist. There’s a reason that most advertising ends up as wastage, and skip buttons and ad blockers are so popular.
Reaching for a mascot with no underpinning strategy is putting the cart before the horse. It’s proposing an answer to a question that hasn’t even been asked. Mascots aren’t a problem to solve, but they’re a potentially brilliant solution to one if you get your thinking and your strategy right.
Here’s four very different ways we’ve employed characterisation. It should be noted that none of these briefs began with a mascot. There was no directive of a mascot or a character from any of these clients. Characterisation was one of many potential answers, and in these cases, the strongest shortcut to solving a brand’s problem.
Worksafe – UMM
Worksafe Victoria came to us with a doozy of a brief.
After years of ads with people falling from ladders and losing fingers, young audiences knew who Worksafe was, but weren’t relating or connecting to the brand in regards to the issues that mattered to them most. Like sexual harassment, bullying, overwork, and aggression. And being the most inexperienced and vulnerable group in the workplace, this posed quite the problem.
We had to find a way to resonate with a disconnected audience, who were notoriously hard to reach and cynical to advertising, to discuss incredibly sensitive topics, and with only a 15-second media buy. Yeah. As I said, a bit of a doozy.
To cover so much ground, in such a short space of time, and avoid any issues like gender bias, we decided to characterise the one universal thing that every young person would understand. The feeling that something isn’t quite right. This led us to UMM. A visual and verbal representation of that familiar sinking feeling we’ve all had before.
Ocean Blue – From the coldest waters of Norway
Ocean Blue is an Australian smoked salmon brand, but their salmon is sourced from Norway.
They’d never previously spoken about provenance in their comms, but with questions arising over locally sourced salmon, their Norwegian heritage was quickly becoming a hidden strength worth talking about.
Norway is home to some of the best salmon in the world. Generally speaking, the colder the water, the better the salmon, so the secret behind their delicious salmon was the icy cold fjord water that the salmon is sourced from. So, we launched the positioning: ‘From the coldest waters of Norway’.
To embody and own Norwegian provenance in the Australian market, enter Hans & Lars. Two Norwegian fishermen who very much love what comes out of the icy cold water, but not so much going in themselves.
What began as something of an experiment in leaning into foreign provenance is now a solid, ongoing, high performing brand positioning with multiple campaigns under its belt.
SLATHER- The sun is not your friend
SLATHER is our very own brainchild. After working in the skincare category, we noticed an ozone-sized hole in the market. Australia is number one in the world for skin cancer, and it’s mostly men that develop and die from it. Yet most SPF products are targeted towards women and children, and tend to use feminine-leaning sun-loving imagery in their marketing.
So we decided to say the one obvious thing that no other brand was willing to say, that ‘the sun is not your friend’, and characterise the sun as an enemy. The villainous sun has now become synonymous with the brand, and is simultaneously the very reason why you should buy and use it. The positioning has achieved global recognition for the brand, and has even led to a local copycat who shall remain unnamed.
Maxibon – Go Full Cookie
The ‘Bon is a much-loved product, and has a serious cult following. People get Maxibons tattooed on themselves. For real. There’s genuine ongoing debate over ‘the choc or the biscuit end’. When Maxibon announced they were bringing out a new choc chip cookie Maxibon with cookie on the outside and inside, we went with the simple positioning of ‘Go full cookie’. And turned a man into a cookie to bring this to life in the most entertaining way possible.
In an increasingly fragmented media environment, these characters provided something that a lot of brands struggle with. Coherence. All of these campaigns ran over multiple media channels, TV, OOH, point-of-sale, digital, social (and then within that, TikTok, Meta, Insta…) and provided critical brand coherence across the media buy.
It’s important to note again that none of these ‘characters’ came from a ‘mascot brief’, either. Nor are they simply just mascots. Because brand characters are more than that. UMM was the characterisation of a feeling; Hans & Lars were the characterisation of a place; The SLATHER sun was the characterisation of a problem; and the Maxibon Cookie-man was the characterisation of a product.
The world of marketing and advertising is all too quick to jump from one trend to another, to blindly follow the next template, or ‘best practice’, but execution can only ever amplify a strong strategy and a captivating idea.
So, yes, by all means harness the power of brand characters. But make sure you do it for the right reasons to garner the best results.
