Brand Mascots and B2B Companies

In this episode of 10 Minutes On Brand, Focus Lab’s Will Straughn and Bill Kenney discuss brand mascots. The ground rules for 10 Minutes On Brand are simple: we'll discuss one specific subject related to branding but only have 10 minutes to dive deep. This episode will dive into questions like: Why are mascots popular with B2C companies, but so rare for B2B? Is there an opportunity there? What does having a mascot accomplish?

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Why are mascots popular with B2C companies, but so rare for B2B?

[Will Straughn]

It's clear that mascots work for B2C companies because you see them everywhere. You go down the aisle at the grocery store, you watch commercials on TV - B2C companies are leaning into mascots. So clearly they work.

Why do you think mascots aren't as common in B2B companies?

[Bill Kenney]

Just this morning we talked about this in a call with a prospective client. First of all, mascots bring value. We talked about this because a big part of the value that we want to help this prospective client with, is trust.

In the industry that they're in, we need to build trust within the brand. They are a trustworthy company, but that needs to be even more clear because the industry can be shady or trustworthy. So we need to position them more trustworthy.

There are a lot of ways to do that. What we discussed in the call this morning was some type of face for the organization - call it a mascot, call it a big personality, call it whatever - as a way to build trust. It's a way to align as a company. To say “I actually align to that person's values, how they speak, their humor, how they dress, there, I actually like that brand.”

That happens sometimes at the CEO level. Steve Jobs would be an example of that, Richard Branson, etc. That also happens if you try to distill down to: What value does a mascot bring? An illustrated mascot? It still needs to be something you can identify with. It’s not just chicken wings. You need Colonel Sanders, you need the guy that has his own personality - that’s a story. It's not just “I love chicken wings,” there's more than that, there's more to sink your teeth into, no pun intended.

[Bill Kenney]

I think it is easier in a B2C world to say “this is a consumer facing product, it’s a direct line to the consumer and therefore with a mascot we’re really going to have a direct line to that person.” Where B2B, unfortunately, still falls into that world of “well, business to business doesn't need that.” But yeah, they do, because they're still selling to people too.

At the end of the line, there's still a person, there's a human being. So I think it just hasn't caught up to the fact that it would be really valuable in that world. Here's the kicker, though: all it takes is a big dog in the B2B world to do that, and show that that's a path to success and everybody else falls in line.

What B2B brands have mascots?

[Will Straughn]

I was trying to think of big B2B brands that do have mascots and Salesforce does have one. They've got their mascot Astro, which I think you mainly see at a lot of their conferences and more behind the scenes stuff.

Salesforce, is the first out of all the B2B brands that I could think of that has one. Some of the other ones that were coming to the top - GitHub has their Octocat, which is big in the dev space. MailChimp - they're getting more into B2B with Freddy. And then I think HootSuite has their owl, but with B2B, those are the only ones that I could really think of. But when you start thinking of B2C companies with mascots, the list is about a mile long.

[Bill Kenney]

It's just further along in that way, but I don't think that the value offering is different. That's not to say that a mascot is helpful for every brand either. I think B2B is just kind of the lagger in the mascot world.

[Will Straughn]

You and I know B2B companies are typically more averse to risk. So I could see trying to create a mascot as somewhat risky because if a brand isn't committed to a branded decision, it's not going to work. Maybe there are more nuances to get buy-in at a B2B company to support that.

What does the future look like for B2B mascots?

[Will Straughn]

But I like what you were saying. When I think of mascots, it actually helps bring more humanity to a brand that might not have that. One of the biggest hurdles to get over with a B2B brand is: “how do we break out of gimmicks and jargon, and how do we inject more humanity?” So maybe the next 20 years will be bright for B2B mascots?

[Bill Kenney]

If the Salesforce mascot became more front and center, maybe not as much internal or conference space and it became a real differentiator for them, you'd see all these other B2B companies saying “Oh my God, we need a mascot. Oh my God, we need a mascot.” In the same way that everyone started to say: “we need clean type faces and we need better looking websites.” Everybody falls in line and that's not to say that's right or wrong.

That just hasn't happened yet in the B2B space. It will take some of the big movers to start thinking that way. And I would also say that B2B - to no fault of its own - has historically been very corporate- and enterprise-like.

[Will Straughn]

When I think of some of the biggest companies in the world, Disney is always in my top five. You can't think of Disney without Mickey Mouse. How many organizations are dying to work with the Disney chain at some point - whether it's through Disney parks, Disney streaming, Disney movies, Disney merchandising. That's an enterprise company that has a mascot that's up front and center and it's not stopping anyone from wanting to do business with them.

Types of B2B brand mascots

[Bill Kenney]

I think people confuse mascots for silly, gimmicky cartoon characters. It doesn't have to be that. Again, it can be a person. It could be a very serious face and a person is the actual mascot, or it could be an illustrated version of an octopus cat, which has worked really well for GitHub.

It's just another tool in the tool belt of a brand. And if you don't execute it well sometimes you can have too many, if you have too many things going on. So nobody knows what to align to. It's just a mess of a bunch of things, but if you do it well, it's another really powerful tool.

What does having a mascot accomplish? (with examples)

So now you have hammers, you have saws, you have screwdrivers and the mascot could become another really powerful tool. And I would say GitHub is a pretty damn good example. That's a good one.

[Will Straughn]

Cause the GitHub community loves that mascot. Right? They love stickers, swag, patches, pens - everything.

[Bill Kenney]

I'm not even in the GitHub community, and I have had an epic Octacat Storm Trooper sticker on my laptop - as a non-developer with no GitHub account. That's pretty rad, and that's what they want. That's what their mascot is doing, as opposed to other mascots that do something different, they help tell more of the brand story and things like that.

[Will Straughn]

We talked that mascots add humanity, mascots add excitement - because you saw that sticker and wanted it.. So it added an exciting brand impression and then it was memorable - you remembered it, which is what brands die for. They die to be more connected on the human level. They love to be memorable.

If it's a brand that you can get excited about like GitHub or…I have stuff with Mickey Mouse on it, and I'm a bearded tattooed man in my mid-thirties. I don't care. When I put on my Mickey Mouse shirt, I'm like, “heck yeah, man, I love this thing.” It’s a really interesting conversation and it’s so funny that you had the same conversation.

It got my mind spinning that maybe this is a really untapped potential for the next couple of decades, specifically for B2B brands. Competition is only going to get greater and maybe some B2B brands need to be a little bit bold, step out of their comfort zone and ask themselves “is there an opportunity to have a mascot?”

But you have to be smart, right? Be smart, be intentional, be committed because if you're not, it's going to fail and then that's a huge waste of money.

[Bill Kenney]

MailChimp is another great example. They have not taken the foot off the gas pedal on Freddy, their mascot. They've redrawn him, they've polished him over time, but he is definitely a big piece of their brand, he's a personality.

[Will Straughn]

They made him real - they’ve got the little figurines. It gives you so many opportunities that a typical B2B brand wouldn't have. Most B2B brands don't have the ability to make a little figurine that people are going to be standing in line for at the conference.

[Bill Kenney]

Limited edition versions of it and stuff like that. That's where you start to get beyond the features. You're not selling and you're not enticing people anymore with just the features. What else is going to have any interest to somebody about your brand?. It's pretty cool. I would go stand in a MailChimp line for a limited edition Freddy mystery box.

Brand mascot impact at the executive level

[Will Straughn]

With B2B brands, it's important to get to the decision makers. When you look at these B2B companies, there's always a decision maker at these enterprise companies. To have the influence of the people that are going to use the product is extremely powerful.

If you have engineers, and writers, and designers, and marketers that are really excited about a brand, and you're the ultimate decision maker at a B2B company - you better believe you're going to give that company a little bit of attention to say: “Maybe I will consider that company because all of my employees are obsessed with it. They're wearing the shirts. They have stickers on their laptops.”

Leaders at these B2B companies - their ears are open. They don't want to bring in a technology product that their team doesn't get excited about. They want to bring something in that gets embraced and maybe a mascot is a way to not only reach the decision makers, but the people that are hands-on with products. It got my wheels turning the other night.

[Bill Kenney]

It'll be interesting to see how that evolves over the next 10 years: Who leans in, and who doesn’t.

[Will Straughn]

We'll see 10 years from now how right or wrong we were.

[Bill Kenney]

I don't even know if you can be right or wrong. There's value there. It just depends if the right company adopts it and if they execute on it well…I would feel like there is no wrong there, it is only right.