Brands have used personas to represent themselves for many, many years. Animated characters and over-the-top “real” people do a lot for brands (and sales!) – they build brand identity, inject familiarity and personalization, speak from a voice that lessens the pushiness of selling a product, capture the hearts of consumers and are able to “experience” things that a stuffy corporate name and logo can not.
But their transition into social media mascot has some unique challenges. Here’s a look at three brand characters that made headlines this week for the way they used social media – both good and bad.
Old Spice launched a viral music video featuring its brand persona, the “Old Spice Guy” (former NFL player Terry Crews), in which he is wired up to a room filled with musical instruments and creates noise by flexing his muscles. Once the ad finishes viewers are invited to record their own piece of music, using their computer keyboard (which becomes interactive). Viewers can then share their recording with their Vimeo followers. The project is the collaboration between Old Spice, Wieden + Kennedy, MJZ, Mackenzie Cutler, The Mill and Vimeo – and it is the first of its kind. What’s most interesting is that Old Spice is not mentioned by name at all in the entirety of the ad. The video elevates the brand persona into a vehicle through which consumers become active contributors to the brand and its digital marketing strategy – so it’s really the next level of user-generated content marketing.
Fact: “The Most Interesting Man In The World” does not tweet. The Dos Equis/ Heineken persona was created by Euro RSCG 4D (who also did the Evian Roller-skating Babies) to “cut through the crowded beer sector and present Dos Equis in a way that would spark chatter, pique curiosity, and critically move beyond the conventional Mexican imagery of beaches, burritos and burros.” It worked. The “Most Interesting Man” character spouts witty quips, is a borderline egotist, and is always surrounded by beautiful women. In short, he is exactly the sort of person that would tweet! Yet Heineken says its decision to not let him tweet is part of a bigger marketing strategy. But does it make sense? For one, Heineken has already gone digital in almost every way. They actively use Twitter (from the perspective of a brand) and even piloted Twitter’s new age gate tool that ensures followers are of legal drinking age. And they recently entered into a high-profile deal with Facebook that gives them consulting advice and early access to Facebook’s latest products and developments. The company posts videos to YouTube and even responds to user comments. Heineken USA’s Chief Marketing Officer explains the strategy in an interview with AdAge here. Does it fall short?
An interesting article from Social Media Today reveals how consumers react to the brand personas of the three leading U.S insurance companies: Progressive, GEICO, and Allstate (whose brand mascots are “Flo”, the “Gecko”, and the “Mayhem” guy, respectively.) The persona with the biggest social media persona problem is “Flo”, whose character now seems insensitive and out of step after a widely publicized legal battle/ PR crisis (“The Auto Insurance Case That Blew Up on the Internet”) that exposed the company for not having a social media or online reputation management policy in place. In a recent survey, viewers described “Flo” as “creepy,” “annoying,” “irritating,” or “horrifying,” and allude to her lack of authenticity or say they’re unable to pinpoint exactly why they loathe her so much. Progressive has since removed her image from their corporate Twitter account, although “she” has her own Twitter page as well as a Facebook page(with 4.5 millions fans!), and Wikipedia page. Should Flo go?
What can we take away from these examples? Well, I think it’s clear that when the creativity and strategy is in place, the return can be huge. To this point, when brands separate themselves from the sales pitch, profits, and product namedropping for once – they earn the trust of many more consumers. But because marketing strategies are so public today, there is a limited timeframe to execute, otherwise companies can quickly look outdated. And with regards to all industries, social media-customer care and online reputation management should never be in the hands of anyone that is not human.
