Mascot Makeover

A focus group of about seven African American and white women in their 40s sat around a conference table in Atlanta last July, giggling like sixth-graders. They spent an hour sedately talking about paper towels, and then Maria McHugh, an account planner at Fallon, New York, asked them about the Brawny Man. They smiled, they giggled, and then they compared romantic fantasies of the blond Everyman on the paper-towel package—he was a firefighter, a construction worker, a lumberjack or a cowboy who was strong, rugged, reliable and "treats me well," recalls account director Victor Kimble, who helped conduct the session. At similar groups nationwide, he says, the Fallon team was amazed to hear the same schoolgirl laughter erupt at the mention of the Brawny Man. These moms seemed to be passionate about a two-dimensional packaged-goods icon. Brand icons have an astounding life in the consumer imagination. For the last century, these mascots have been a surefire way to elicit an emotional response across a broad demographic swath without the demands, expense and failings of human celebrities. Most of them, from Mr. Peanut to the Brawny Man, were invented when the country was "younger, cornier and more naive," as a way to make large, faceless manufacturers seem friendlier, says Will Ayres, managing director of creative at consultancy Enterprise IG in New York. Making a mascot relevant for the 21st century, while retaining its comforting familiarity, can be a tricky, time-consuming business. The greatest challenge, say brand managers, is knowing when and how to update their precious icons and when they are best left alone.After Foote, Cone & Belding, New York, put Mr. Peanut in surfer shorts and sandals, along with his requisite top hat and cane, in a Planters spot six years ago, one critic termed the sight "surely a sign of the end of civilization as we know it," recalls John Colquhoun, group creative director. After all, the dignified 87-year-old icon is credited with elevating the image of the crude peanut into an elegant party snack."Since being thought of as a harbinger of the apocalypse was inconsistent with the Planters brand image," quips Colquhoun, "we quickly reverted back to his more traditional attire. Sometimes people need to have their icons stay just as they remember them." Some industry observers are asking if that axiom applies to the Snuggle bear in spots that show him mingling with models. Does the newly suave and sophisticated critter stray too far from the brand essence? Parodying perfume ads, one spot, promoting scented products, shows a sexy woman at a resort jumping into a pool and swimming over to the bear, who eyes her over the top of his sunglasses and hands her a towel. Dean Hacohen, executive creative director at Snuggle shop Lowe in New York, argues that the approach preserves the soft and cuddly traits of the bear while making him more cool and giving the agency leeway to put him in scenarios outside the laundry room. "Today's customers are more receptive to that kind of personality," he says. "Whether he's wearing sunglasses or standing by the beach with waves crashing around him, he stands for softness."Toys R Us' updated Geoffrey the giraffe also has its critics, who say he's a little too caustic for a toy-store brand. "While the hip, wise-cracking giraffe is amusing, that attitude is not reflected in the actual store experience," says Jim Hardison, creative director at consultancy Character in Portland, Ore., who has worked on M&M candies, the Maytag man and other icons.The client had the same concern when creatives at Leo Burnett in Chicago proposed turning the cheerful 2-D cartoon Geoffrey into a realistic 16-foot walking, wise-cracking character, recalls Ned Crowley, agency executive creative director. The agency persuaded him, says Warren Kornblum, Toys R Us chief marketing officer, with the argument that Geoffrey reinforces the brand by appealing to moms as well as kids and acts as a counter to the largely saccharin world of kids' toys. The giraffe should never cross over from funny to sarcastic, "but we want him to get close to the line," Kornblum says. "We don't want Geoffrey to be too mushy, or to be a huckster."When Toys R Us set out two and a half years ago to tout its upgraded stores and service, it didn't immediately turn to the brand icon. "Our first temptation was to bring out the marching bands and announce that everything is brand new," says Kornblum. "Then we had an epiphany moment: Why not contemporize our heritage and use the giraffe?"For three days in February 2001, about a dozen Toys R Us employees holed up in Chicago's Children's Museum with a half-dozen Burnett staffers to plot the future of the talking giraffe. The playful surroundings helped the mood at Camp Geoffrey, but the discussions were serious, including the issue of resolving the client's worries that the new Geoffrey would be out of sync with the brand, recalls Crowley. In the nine months that followed, the agency created ads showing a full-size animatronic smart aleck who orders store clerks around and gets misty-eyed over his favorite toys. "Geoffrey started out kind of goofy and manic. Then, as we worked, his humor became drier, wittier and self-deprecating," says Crowley, who worked with associate creative director Jon Moore. The new ads debuted in September 2001, and by the end of 2002, the Intermedia Advertising Group ranked three of the spots among the five most memorable of the year.The real branding power, experts say, resides in mascots that are living, breathing personalities. "Effective brand icons are characters with a story line, including friends, limitations and fears," says Cheryl Berman, chief creative officer at Leo Burnett USA, which has shepherded Ronald McDonald, the Keebler elves, the Jolly Green Giant and the Pillsbury Doughboy, along with Geoffrey the giraffe. But it's important that the character not become too real, as Georgia-Pacific found in its quest for a more contemporary Brawny man. The company spent about $1 million last year on a contest to find the ultimate tough yet sensitive Brawny Man and considered using the winner, a 42-year-old California firefighter, as the model for the icon's revamped image. Testing, however, found that "consumers preferred a fantasy figure over a real guy," says Gino Biondi, marketing director for Brawny. A new Brawny man designed by marketing agency Deskey Associates, New York, will appear on packaging and collateral material in October. This dream guy is fortysomething, a dark-haired outdoorsy fellow in a flannel shirt, and has a "timeless" seductive appeal, says Biondi. In the 30 years since his creation, the Brawny Man has gone through other subtle changes: His lumberjack's ax has been removed, his mustache trimmed and his plaid shirt switched to denim.Fallon's new TV and print campaign, which broke last month, also taps into the insights gleaned in the focus groups, mining the emotional connection behind the Brawny Man giggle and playing off the sensual side of the mascot. In testing, says Fallon's Kimble, sex beat out humorous ideas. Inspired by romance novels, two spots show tall, attractive men in plaid glancing suggestively at the camera as they prepare romantic meals for their wives and use the product to sop up their spills. But the ads never show a woman, so viewers can imagine themselves as being wooed. The men are meant to embody the traits of the Brawny icon without actually being the Brawny Man, says Kimble. Berman says her guiding principle is to extend a brand mascot using an element of surprise but keep what people love most. Change keeps consumers interested, but too much tampering and the character won't resonate with anyone. "Steady evolution is better than a complete makeover," she says, which is often a temptation. She recalls creatives on the Pillsbury account—shifted out of the agency three years ago due to conflicts—who were tired of the Doughboy getting poked in the stomach and wanted to put him in a microwave until he started to yell. " 'Oh no, you don't,' we'd have to tell them," she says. "That's not keeping with his appeal." With Ronald McDonald, Burnett follows a closely guarded set of rules that govern how the fast-food icon looks, moves and talks and where he can go. Ronald's activities, hair and costume have been updated only slightly over the years, with a temporary misstep in 1996 when a campaign by Fallon pitched McDonald's Arch Deluxe burger to adults by engaging Ronald in adult activities such as golf. Burnett is currently in talks with McDonald's about how to use Ronald in its new global brand initiative.In the same way that Burnett made Toys R Us' Geoffrey into a more fleshed-out character, Campbell-Ewald last year transformed the cute, pudgy Michelin Man from a drawing into a 3-D animated figure who is "smart, sophisticated and worldly—a George Clooney or Pierce Brosnan type of guy—who happens to be as big as Shaq," says Bill Ludwig, chief creative officer at the Warren, Mich., agency.C-E's research showed the friendly old icon, born 105 years ago in France and brought to the U.S. in the '50s, was out of sync with Michelin's newer global identity as a well-engineered performance product aimed at men. The agency looked to the Michelin Man's European persona, known as Bibendum, who is endearing yet strong enough to make the hard-hitting performance message convincing, says Ludwig. A TV campaign that broke in February 2002 shows the muscle-bound figure as an astronaut, an ecstatic business executive, a tourist and an SUV driver. M&Ms have also taken on personalities since BBDO began working on the brand in 1995. The characters had served as generic symbols of the Mars-brand candy—happy creatures, aimed at children, that marched, sang and jumped in a pool of chocolate, says Rob McKinley, BBDO worldwide account director. The agency gave the candies a host of conflicts as they try to fit in the human world, adopting a "sitcom format" in which the characters interact and creating a unique personality for each color. "We wondered if we should give them names, but opted to call them by their color, because that's what consumers called them," McKinley says. Red is ambitious, Yellow is dopey and kind, Blue is laid-back and wry, and cool, hip Green can be hot-tempered. "Their flaws and clashing character traits make for easier storytelling in the advertising," compared with the blandness of universally likable icons, says Character's Hardison, who directed M&M spots in 1999-2000 during his tenure at Will Vinton Studios in Portland, Ore. "They are not treated as brand ambassadors who can't offend anyone. Instead, they were formulated like entertainment creatures," which thrive on conflict, he adds. Inspiration came from Disney, The Simpsons and Marvel Comics, adds McKinley, "which showed us how to use physical humor to appeal to kids and verbal humor to hook adults."Imposing a personality on icons can easily backfire. For decades, Kentucky Fried Chicken used its gray-haired founder called "the Colonel" in its advertising, and when he passed away, cast an actor to replace him. In 1998, KFC and its then-agency Young & Rubicam, New York, turned the human character into a fast-talking cartoon with the voice of actor Randy Quaid. The new, loud persona had little in common with the original soft-spoken colonel. Three years later the client ditched the cartoon and the account shifted to BBDO, New York. Jim Ferguson, former chief creative officer at Young & Rubicam, defends the cartoon as a good idea but says the agency took the character too far on the client's insistence. (KFC would not comment.) "The only time we got in trouble was when we turned that icon into something that he wasn't," says Ferguson, now an evp at DDB in Chicago. "He was a down-home Southern gentlemen."When pressed, icon creators say they can never be quite sure how consumers will accept new versions of old characters. Transforming a two-dimensional cartoon such as Geoffrey that has lived in children's imaginations for years into a joking, moving 3-D character is immensely risky, says Toys R Us' Kornblum. Despite all the research, testing and creative talent involved in the process, he says, "I admit I had a lot of sleepless nights."

Brand Marketing

Mascot Makeover

Joan Voight

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Joan Voight