Brand Characters

How to create a brand character.

This branding technique is similar to the > create a character advertising technique. The difference here is that a brand character must represent the brand's personality, relationship with the audience, and visual symbols.

An illustrated character, the Michelin Tire Man, is the world's oldest known brand character. And that type of brand character has several advantages: he won't grow old, complain about his contract, or get arrested for naughty behavior. But there are many ways to create brand characters, each with pros and cons.

Create a dramatic role for a real person to play:

There's the Burger King. The PC and Mac guys. And before them there was Mrs. Wong for Hong Kong's Park 'N Shop supermarket chain. That 60s something grandmother would zip around the store, lowering prices with the slash of her red marker, and making sure shoppers are satisfied.

Oh, and perhaps most famous of all, there's Ronald McDonald, who plays the clown for, uh, what's the name of that fast food place?

Create imaginary - illustrated or animated characters:

The battery powered Bunny for energizer batteries. He just keeps on "going, and going and going ..."

Mr. Opportunity for Honda. He's an illustrated character, and he's knocking on your door!

Tony the Tiger for Kellogg's breakfast cereal. He gets your day off to a "Grreeeeeat!" start.

Use a real person associated with the company:

Charles Schwab, President and company spokesperson for his namesake discount stock brokerage.

The Kentucky Colonel for KFC.

Sir Richard Branson for Virgin everything.

The Singapore Girl, a generic group of stewardesses representing Singapore Airlines.

These are real people acting in their real role at at the company -- founder, CEO, employee -- who represent the brand.

Turn the product into a person, or a person into the product.

The Michelin Tire Man is exactly that.

One way to explore this approach is to draw a picture of the product at one end of a long layout sheet, and on the other end, draw a picture of the brand as a person. Then create a spectrum of morphs. On one end, a human with a few product characteristics. On the other, a product with a few human characteristics.

Or just play with this approach on your computer or sketch pad. See what you get.

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