Nowadays, the concept of branding is not only related to the logo but also extends to symbols, unique designs, icons, brand statements, or any element that differentiates you from your competitors. In today’s competitive environment, a mascot design is something your brand needs in its communication campaigns. Nothing is more effective than a mascot to ensure that your brand is easily recognizable and memorable in the minds of customers.
Nowadays, mascots bring significant benefits to branding for a company
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1. What is a mascot?
So, what is a mascot? In Vietnamese, mascot can be understood as a “linh vật” – a character used to personify your brand. Mascots can be designed from anything: from an inanimate object, to an animal, a human, a plant, or even a completely imaginary character. The purpose of a mascot is to convey the values of the brand and express those values to customers without the need for direct communication. Interestingly, the word “mascot” originates from the French word “mascotte”, meaning lucky charm.
Mascots are most commonly found in sports, where they are created not only to help people identify with a team but also to boost the morale of athletes and fans. It is no surprise that nowadays many brands are incorporating mascots into their marketing campaigns. Mascots can be present in various platforms, from display designs (banners, posters) to packaging, gifts, and personalized designs that can communicate in real life with people.
2. The benefits of Mascots in brand strategy
The benefits of mascots in branding strategy are clear. Mascots have been around for decades, and we are all familiar with some of the most iconic ones, such as Colonel Sanders from KFC, Mickey Mouse from Disney, the green robot from Android, the blue bird from Duolingo, and many others that can be found anywhere.
Mascots help make the brand image more approachable to users
Mascot design has a significant impact on the development of the global economy in general and the cultural and social values of each region in particular. Their influence is so profound that they have become an irreplaceable element in popular culture, and hundreds of them exist that anyone can recognize. What are the benefits that brands receive when applying mascot design to their branding process?
2.1. Connection between customers and the brand
According to a study by Technicolor Creative Studio on September 22, 2021, brand mascots or characters can increase profit and emotional connection with customers by up to 41%. This figure proves that mascots are a trend in the future as they are an excellent way to create a connection with a brand’s customers.
Nowadays, community campaigns, launches, and social media are very popular among young people. Therefore, designing a mascot for a brand for these events will quickly capture the public’s attention and attract them as potential customers.
2.2. Show uniqueness
Mascot design brings the uniqueness of the brand, making it easier for customers to recognize it among competing brands. According to Disney, in 2008, their mascot (Mickey Mouse) had a recognition rate of 98% among children aged 3-11.
Duolingo’s owl is also a familiar image to those who are passionate about learning foreign languages.
Thanks to genetic inheritance from our ancestors, the human brain can easily perceive images more than text, and mascot design is one of the most powerful and memorable images. Meticulously invested mascots help brands build unique and easily recognizable personalities. When a brand promotes its mascot accurately, it will increase its recognition value and strengthen the brand’s message.
2.3. Effectively tell the brand story
Mascot design is also applied in StoryTelling. StoryTelling is a popular marketing method used nowadays. StoryTelling is a term used to refer to the creative method of content creation around a product. Creating an attractive story to attract customers. The mascot reflects the spirit of the brand. It easily connects with the audience, conveying the brand’s story.
Compared to logos and advertising banners, mascot design has better communication capabilities. The face, gestures, voice, and actions of the mascot are more attractive to the audience. Customers are more likely to remember and recall the brand’s story from a mascot than from other brand-building activities.
To build a brand, it is necessary to tell its story
2.4. Evoke emotions
Although humans tend to think logically and consciously decide on actions, there are still many cases in which human decisions depend entirely on emotions. Mascot design is a perfect method to test how customers feel about the brand. In this way, the brand can know what makes customers unhappy and find ways to fix it.
2.5. Enhance Brand Voice
Brand Voice, or the brand’s voice, is a term that refers to the way a brand communicates content through sound to the public. As the foundation of branding strategy, branding voice is really important for brands to communicate with customers. And to support this, mascot design is a perfect addition. Brands don’t need to spend too many resources to “introduce” themselves to customers. Mascots don’t need too much time to convey information to customers about the product. Customers can easily understand whether the product is serious or entertaining, lively or calm, for business people or freelancers, highly personalized or for groups.
2.6 Display a friendly brand image
Mascot design represents a pleasant image of your brand. They are a social tool to attract the attention of viewers, thereby promoting customer purchases. Customers from different segments can be connected through a mascot.
Customers from different segments can be connected through a mascot
In recent years, having a mascot design to attract customers has become popular. Brands use mascots as the center of their communication events, and you can easily see people taking selfies with “super cute” mascot designs at shopping centers and malls. This increases the brand’s ability to communicate with customers.
2.7. Increase brand interaction
This is one of the outstanding benefits of designing a brand mascot. It helps you increase the level of interaction of the brand with its audience. For example, Duolingo interacts with customers through humor, and Disney’s Mickey Mouse interacts with customers through fun and friendliness. These characters provide the public with a positive and dynamic user experience, making them more likely to interact with and follow the brand in the future through these mascot designs.
2.8. Create a unique style for the brand
All products that attract customers originate from vision. Mascot design is the special factor that makes users attracted to the brand. Especially in the fiercely competitive market today,having an unappealing brand image is likely to result in losing potential customers. Although most consumers know that the benefits and functions of a product are the core factors, in a market where too many products have the same function, external factors such as design will be crucial in the consumer’s decision-making process.
Today, mascot design has become a core element on visual platforms such as websites, mobile applications, or physical products. Therefore, it has a significant impact on the aesthetic perception, adding beauty and style to the brand image.
2.9. Generate potential customers and revenue
Finally, and most importantly, every business activity aims to generate profits. The value of a mascot is that it can be used to generate revenue for the business alongside its core business operations. For example, Disney makes money by placing their brand mascot, Mickey Mouse, on products and licensing its use to external businesses. Users of these goods contribute to the brand’s revenue and help promote the product further.
3. Characteristics of an effective mascot
An effective Mascot Design may not make an impression on you, but it may create a special impression for different client files. Depending on the field in which the brand operates, the brand has a unique approach to the audience. Therefore, determining what makes an effective mascot design is not easy. However, here are some features that TELOS believes every mascot needs to operate well:
- Memorable
- Easily recognizable
- Must represent the purpose of the brand
- Represent a specific character
- Mascot design must be flexible to adapt and adjust
- Can be applied to many different communication activities
- Have aesthetic appeal
- Harmonious in style
- Friendly and accessible to users
4. The role of mascots in user interfaces
TELOS is an agency that emphasizes building a system that enhances user experience. So why don’t we take a look at the role and benefits of mascot design in UX?
Mascots make the user interface more fun and approachable
Mascot Design is very useful in web and app interfaces: they bring interactions to life, attract users’ attention to important details in the design, and become memorable elements in the eyes of consumers.
Mascots are used in illustrations to show actions or interactions, and a mascot design is also a good way to avoid clutter in the design. In this way, display space is saved for other layout elements or simply creates more space for users to interact with.
5. Mascot projects that TELOS implements
5.1. Plastic Industry Project
The Plastic Industry Project is a mascot design collaboration between TELOS and CHANGE. This is a full-body human-shaped character in white color with the left foot made entirely of plastic bottles. This character will appear whenever users use plastic in their daily activities such as shopping, drinking coffee, etc. This is a project with the purpose of encouraging people to limit the use of plastic products such as plastic bottles, cups, straws, etc. This is a mascot design project that TELOS can be proud of, with the aim of conveying meaningful messages to society.
5.2. VIVITA MASCOT
The VIVITA mascot design, infused with the soul by TELOS, is a youthful, modern, and 4.0 character, but also with a bit of humor and cheerfulness. He appears to help people in emergency situations, but sometimes also gives silly advice.
The mascot design shape of VIVITA is a high, neat bun with a heart-shaped outline. Two rosy cheeks increase cuteness. The white blouse-like shirt, wooden clogs characteristic of Vietnamese culture. In addition, the details are also embedded with heart-shaped images to show the brand’s loving personality.
Nowadays, mascots not only play a role in public brand identification but also an element that brings emotions to customers when the brand applies the mascot in its communication campaigns. The influence of social media, communications, or especially meme culture makes mascots a powerful weapon for businesses.
Currently, there are many mascot design services available in the market. Mascot design agencies with reasonable prices will be a suitable choice for brands that want to build their own mascot. Among them, TELOS stands out as an agency with a modern and fresh mascot creation process that is suitable for the language of young people today. If you have any questions or want to consult about mascot services, please do not hesitate to leave your information. We will provide free consultation.
