Your Brand Needs A Personality - Spokespersons and Spokescreatures!

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Brands are strengthened by close association with a mascot, a spokesperson, or a spokescreature -- especially one with a bit of a quirky, but memorable personality, who actually speaks to the audience. Even better, one who actually engages with them in a social media type of dialogue or friendly exchange. From the GEICO gecko, to the now departed Taco Bell chihuahua, to the newly-rapping DJ AFLAC Duck (with his bullfrog-on-lilypad chorus of croakin' homies), critters add a dimension of personality to a brand or a company. I'm not speaking of SitePals (those human-like cartoon-creatures who appear on websites and blogs everywhere and make introductions or announcements). I'm speaking of animated creatures (real or drawn) who speak, who write and who have slightly eccentric personalities, making them more memorable and more engaging.

Spokescreatures can engage prospective customers through commentary posts, social media forums, return emails, contests, surveys and in an endless variety of productive ways. I'll confess: people want to see and hear a personality who or which speaks for a brand.

An article which recently came to me in a SmartBrief Newsletter truly caught my eye (not literally). I was overjoyed that it focused on one of my all-time favorite sugar-laden cereals... CAP'N CRUNCH! [Quick Sidebar: My favorite breakfast used to be a 2 to 1 ratio of CAP'N CRUNCH and COCOA PUFFS in a bowl of cold milk. I believe that I switched from this mixture to cold pizza when I was about 17 years of age.]
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• Social media lessons from Cap'n Crunch
  Brands with well-developed mascots have a head start when it comes to drumming up buzz, Andy Sernovitz writes. Quaker Oats demonstrated that by allowing "Cap'n Crunch" to blog and tweet in the first person, creating a backstory about his trips to sea and allowing him to ask fans for advice on developing the brand. "The Cap'n is always in character -- and this is a fundamental part of the brand's strategy," Sernovitz writes. SmartBrief/SmartBlog on Social Media (10/27)     

Give your brand an original and eccentric personality. It is very, very worthwhile.

Douglas E Castle

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