October 2008 Archives

We've been fielding a lot of calls over the last few weeks from
folks wanting to spruce up their brand characters. Since we
started our practice many years ago with a focus on brand
characters, that definitely got our attention.

Most of the time, brand characters don't get much respect. Agency
creatives often view them as tired or clichéd and marketers
worry about how something so old can ever be "relevant." But
brand characters have amazing potential to connect emotionally
with an audience, and when economic times are tough they can be
like money in the bank. While this ability to connect is
commonly accepted on an anecdotal basis, the latest
technological/medical breakthroughs offer a scientific
hypothesis as to why brand characters are so effective.

Researchers from Harvard University and the University of
Michigan, using fMRIs to study brain responses, have
demonstrated that people's brains process personality traits
differently for humans than they do for brands. Brand
personality traits are processed in a portion of the brain that
analyzes objects rather than in the portion that typically
processes the traits associated with people. "Advertisers should
keep in mind that when they use personality terms for a product
--reliable, trustworthy, cheerful--consumers are not associating
those purely human qualities to the products in question," said
lead author Carolyn Yoon, an assistant professor at the
University of Michigan Business School. One solution, the study
's authors note, could be to employ brand characters like Tony
the Tiger or Ronald McDonald. Yoon believes that it's more
likely for brand characters to be processed in the "person"
regions of the brain, allowing for emotional connections to
"stick" to the brand in a way that they would not in the absence
of a character.

Of course, the great brands succeed in building a deep emotional
relationship with their audience that seems to overcome this
apparent brain deficit. But in tough times, it's a good idea to
accept help wherever you can find it--even if the person offering
you a hand up is a cartoon.

So keep your eyes peeled over the coming months to see how many
characters reemerge. The tough economic conditions are likely to
be a boon for brand characters. If you have a brand character of
your own, you might consider dusting it off, sprucing it up and
putting it back out there. In these uncertain times, your brand
character could be a great hedge against eroding brand equity.
In any case, I'd love to know if you are observing the same
phenomenon that we are seeing.

A couple of months ago, we were preparing for Character Camp on
one of the world's most visible brands. One of the executives
responsible for briefing us summarized the problem in a very
interesting way. He said, "The situation here is that for five
years the business has been doing better than the brand."

Over the preceding five years the company had cleaned up it
operations, strengthened its product offerings and significantly
improved its advertising. These efforts were driving traffic and
growing revenue, but they were not building the kind of
relationship between the brand and its audience that feels
authentic and generates loyalty. In the absence of such a
relationship, business success seems fragile.

People frequently ask me how to know when it's time to bring a
brand to Character Camp. I think that answering this question--is
your business doing better than your brand?--might provide
helpful insights. If the business is doing well, then presumably
you have the competitive situation figured out (the war metaphor
). And you probably also have good insight into your consumer
(the science metaphor). But unless you have also looked at your
brand through the lens of story, it is difficult to make
progress in building the kind relationship that lowers your
selling costs and raises your pricing leverage in a sustainable
way.

This is, of course, just a theory. It would be really helpful to
know if it rings true for you with regard to a brand that you
are currently responsible for or one that you have managed in
the past.

I would love to hear what you think.