Emotional branding by mascot

Role of mascot branding an Indian case study

Y. R. Sonawane *
Abstract:

In this paper the role of mascot in emotional branding is described with an Indian case study. This paper
examines the effectiveness of Mascot branding with various theories of emotional design. A study of
mascot branding strategies of few national, multinational companies has been done. The paper investigates
to what extent the mascot campaign has caught the people’s attention, emotions of people for mascot and
understanding of mascot from people’s perception. Various emotional responses associated with mascots
are studied. This can help designers and corporate to add an emotional brand value by effective design and
use of mascot.

Key words: Emotional Branding, Mascot.

1. Introduction
Mascots have been widely used for corporate identity and to get public attention. Local and global
businesses use mascots for products and services. This paper examines the effectiveness of mascot branding
supported with a Indian case study. Due to increasing use of mascot, effective design procedure is a need of time.
The mascot has been widely used as a symbol for visual identity all over the world in all business domains.
Designers must know the primary factors for mascot design from user perspective. This case study initiates a
direction for designers to make their efforts on designing a good mascot as a corporate identity.

2. Method
The objective of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of mascot branding, especially in India by
reviewing insights discussed, the literature and by investigating the understanding of the public about a mascot. It
analyzes to what extent mascot branding has caught the public attention, affection and goes on to identify the
lessons one can learn for the improvement of organization branding. The methodology adopted by this research
is, by nature, essentially interpretative, based on theoretical insights, with case studies, which can enrich existing
theories. Our evaluation of branding is based mainly on a review of the literature and study of relevant
documents, interviews and statistical approach. Questionnaires were randomly distributed at locations to
represent various strata of society. The respondents were asked to write down few adjectives for mascots, there
were also open-ended questions so that, respondents were able to provide additional views and make suggestions
in free-text form. In total, 30 people participated in the survey. Among them, 30% of respondents were campus
residents, 30% were semiliterate, and 40% were from middle class families. All the subjects were in normal
mental state. Subjects were asked to write various positive attributes (adjectives) about mascots. Six mascots
were international, having presence in India. Two mascots were having Indian background. This mascot
characters are from different business fields like Olympic Games, a Soft Drink Corporate, Industrial Paint
Manufacturer, and a Dairy Product Industry as shown in Figure 1. Stories associated with mascot creation, use,
market impact made etc. are collected and analyzed.

3. Branding

A company needs to adopt the right strategies in order to brand itself successfully. Successful branding
depends greatly on the identification of distinctive and defining characteristics possessed by the organization and
people’s perception, experience of the brand. The brand of a product embodies a set of physical and socio-
1
psychological attributes as well as beliefs that are associated with the product (Simoes and Dibb, 2001) .
Branding is a deliberate strategy to select some attributes of a product as core values in order to facilitate the
process by which consumers confidently recognize and appreciate those attributes (De Chernatony and
Dall’Olmo Riley, 1998)2 . Product’s identity can be formed from those core values. Brands are acting as
ambassadors to represent the company. People often translate their perceptions (imagery, feelings, evaluations,
and judgments) into their own understandable identity of the brands. A strong business identity is an essential
marketing tool in the global business environment for a company, products, services it sells. Businesses must
develop their corporate identities by various means. It is important that a brand have a uniform image globally.
Brand should generate revenues. It should last long for business survival and victory.

1
3.1 Emotions and mascot
Mascots have been widely used as symbols for visual identity in contests such as the Olympic Games, arousing
public attention. Mascot creates emotional bonding, and establishing corporate identity. By paralleling mascot
design with communication process, the mascot can be equated with sign vehicles in the symbolic environment.
To be visually effective, the vehicles must be properly designed. Mascot plays an increasingly prominent role in
corporate identity. Through subsequent objective interpretation, designers can grasp the main factors in cognition
of mascot design. With knowledge of the symbolic interaction between users and mascots, designers can
demonstrate more creativity in their products. A Study of cognitive human factors in mascot design 3 can help to
achieve effective mascot design. Emotional needs and affective needs are terms with a design origin. These are
basically the needs of users of products, services, systems and so forth, satisfaction of which may evoke affective
responses. McDonagh and Lebbon (2000)4 refer to the needs related to soft functionality issues, i.e. those needs
beyond the basic functionality and utility issues, such as sentimentality, aesthetics, personal taste, touch, smell,
feel and personality. Product attachment is a core issue in the field of design and emotion. Lately attachment
itself is considered as a design strategy within a sustainable research agenda. For example, Mugge et al. (2008)5
set particular design strategies forth in order to create product attachment. Personalization is proposed as a
strategy to build a meaningful relationship between users and their products. In the first conference on Design
and Emotion in 1999, a aim was to support designers with tools and methods to create a valuable product-user
relationship (Overbeeke and Hekkert, 1999)6.This type of relationship with brand can be established by means of
mascot. Chapman (2005)7states the significance of creating a narrative between the product and the user, in
which the user can generate new meanings through the relationship, to keep the relationship alive. In all these
studies there is a tendency to create an emotionally evocative bond between the user and the product. This type of
narrative relationship with mascot is observed by the author in this study. Norman (2004)8 also focuses on affect
and the levels of affective processing in his book on emotional design. According to his framework, affect may
arise due to three levels differing in cognitive involvement: visceral, behavioral and reflective levels. In the
visceral level, mostly automatic and universal affective responses are produced, such as pleasure in response to
smooth curves or smiling faces. The behavioral level is responsible for affect generated by everyday behavior,
such as satisfactory completion of a task. The reflective level is the most sophisticated level and controls the
pleasure due to intellectual processes, such as the pleasure in decoding the hidden meanings of a poem. Norman
(2004) translates these different levels to different strategies for emotional design. Visceral design focuses on the
automatic responses to the appearance of a product, behavioral design essentially deals with the ease and
efficiency of use, and reflective design primarily focuses on the personal and cultural meanings of products.

3.2. Observations

Mascots provided various emotional responses as shown in Table 1. Author analyzed that looking at a smiling
face of a mascot subject’s response satisfies a visceral level. Mascot’s different postures give behavioral
satisfaction of daily routine activities. In reflective level, curiosity is aroused and peoples try to give personal,
cultural meaning to the mascots. Our study observed type of narrative bonding with mascot and hence products.
Many respondents easily identified the brands and products associated with each mascot. Mascot narrates a story
and establishes a relation between products, services as discussed earlier. Some mascot branding used real time,
contextual stories happening around the world as shown in Figure 2 which is appreciated by public and creates
more emotional responses like bonding, satire, smile, pleasure, anger etc. It generates curiosity at various levels.
Mascot makes brand alive, distinct and becomes a familiar member for a community. People like cute, chubby
baby faces but they accept properly designed oblong facial proportions, thin body parts. This can be observed in
Figure1-B1, B2. Some observant build own stories around the mascot during study.

2
 Figure: 1 Mascots used for this study

Table1. Verbal Analysis

Mascot Figure Adjectives used by people Brand Agreement in
Group number (Few responses from the respondents) objective percentage
Group 1 A1 Birdlike, Sky, Curious, Welcoming Somewhat 67 %
A2 Tree Like, Leaves ,Smiling Similar
A3 Fire, Warm, Curious
A4 Sun, Motion, Dynamic, Smiling, Sporty
A5 Green, Earth, Bird, Sustainable, Smiling

Group 2 B1 Playful, stylish, Liberal, Crazy, skill Similar 80 %

B2 Relax, sleeping, cool, Informal, Thin

Group 3 C1 Kid, chubby, cute, Mischievous Girl Similar 76 %

Group 4 D1 Teenager, Middle Class Boy, Curious Similar 73 %

D2 Artist, Mischievous, A Painter Child

Brand specific comments not considered here.

3
4.Case study from India

Amul (Anand Milk-Producers Union Ltd.)

The Brand Amul is a movement in dairy cooperative in India. It is leading dairy brand of Asia. For fourty years
continuously, company relied only on a single theme behind its advertisements. The mascot based theme that is
talked about more than three generations. A theme that has one of the high brand recalls. Mascot based branding
efforts has been internationally appreciated for its consistency, wits. Amul sales figures have jumped from 1000
tonnes a year in 1966 to over 25,000 tonnes a year in 1997. No other brand comes even close to it. All because a
thumb-sized girl climbed on to the hoardings and put a spell on the masses. It is a four-year-old, in unable to curb
her curiosity who draws her attention to the hoarding that has come up overnight. She was a favorite topic of
discussion for the next one week and people loved it. Everywhere somehow or the other the campaign always
seemed to crop up in conversation. Friday star, round eyed, chubby cheeked, winking at you, are the few
adjectives for this mascot. Hoardings are strategically placed at many traffic lights. People stop, look, chuckled at
the hoarding that casts her dressed in her little polka dotted dress and a red and white bow, holding out her
favorite pack. Amul girl is playing the role of a social observer. Over the years, the campaign acquired that
important touch. These evocative humour advertisements are not just a source of amusement. They make aware
of what is happening around. Many believe that the charm lies in the catchy lines. Company website is having
different contextual stories named topical, greetings, animations based on this mascot. Recent sales turnover of
company is 67113 million Indian rupees9. Public, and especially the children, like things that are cute and little. It
is something appealing. When people laugh at, it is because she is so human; and that is the secret of her
popularity. Thus, mascot can play an important role in brand development of an organization.

Fig.2.A mascot with contextual stories Fig.3.An Inter relationship

5. Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank the students and staff of IIT Kanpur, India.
Author is thankful for persons who, volunteered and shared the resources for this study.

6. Conclusions
Mascots are closer to living form so, they are emotionally affiliated to human beings. The relationship between
emotions, branding, and mascot can be made clear from Figure3. Mascots, characters have a story associated
with them like that of a person or a customer. Mascots are able to show emotions unlike other trademarks Thus
mascots have more chances of emotional acceptance and set bonding between customer and product or services.
Generally, a textual or abstract logo is used as a trademark, which is emotionally less appealing and needs good
cognition level. There can be various uses of mascot like it serves as a brand ambassadors, which never retires.
Mascots can help to generate revenue by various formats such as merchandising and gaming in addition to core
business. Mascot should be designed to adhere to a brand’s image and it can have different emotional reaction.
Design elements such as line, color, and graphics should be carefully used for mascot effectiveness. Consumer’s
perception regarding mascot may vary to some extent but core emotions remain the same. Mascots have good
entertainment value. Mascots can be Intelligently and flexibly used for branding. Mascots and trademarks alone
cannot be a deciding factor for a successful business but they can help in Emotional branding of product and
services.

4
7. References

1
Simoes, C and Dibb, S (2001) Rethinking the brand concept: new brand orientation Corporate
Communications 6(4), 217–224.
2
De Chernatony, L and Dall’Olmo Riley, F (1998) Defining a brand: beyond the literature with experts’
interpretations. Journal of Marketing Management 14(5),417–443.
3
Rungtai Lin, P.C. Lin, K.J. Ko (1999)A study of cognitive human factors in mascot design. International
Journal of Industrial Ergonomics 23 107-122.
4
McDonagh-philp,D. and Lebbon , C. (2000) The Emotional Domain in Product Design, The Design Journal,
3(1) 31-43.
5
Mugge,R., Schoormans, J.P.L. and Schifferstein, H.N.J. (2008)Product Attachment: Design Strategies to
Stimulate the Emotional Bonding to Products, in Schifferstein, H.N.J. and Hekkert, P. (eds.) Product
Experience. Elsevier Science Publishers, London; 425-439.
6
Overbeeke, C. and Hekkert, P.P.M. (1999) Proceedings of the First International Conference on Design and
Emotion, 3-5 November 1999.
7
Chapman, J. (2005) Emotionally Durable Design: Objects, Experiences and Empathy. Earth scan, London.
8
Norman, D. (2004) Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things, Basic Books, New York.
9
http://www.amul.com/story.html accessed on 15-2-2010.
10 Image courtesy to respective brand owners.