Using Personas – Icon Marketing

We love them (or love to hate them), we mimic them, but most of all, we believe in them—or we wouldn’t buy the companies products. Certain characters—the ones we remember from childhood—have a way of defining the era we grew up in, just as our remembrance of them reveals our age.

While Baby Boomers will likely recall the Ajax White Knight, Speedy Alka-Seltzer and Mr. ZIP, their offspring grew up with ties to Frank Bartle’s and Ed Jayme’s wine commercials, you didn’t actually think those two guys were the growers and distillers of Bartle’s and James Wine, right?

Lots of emotions and memories are wrapped up around a large pool of product-hawking personas. But there is an elite tier of personage—the platinum members of the brand character crowd—that have outlived, outranked, and outsold even the luggage-mauling American Tourister Gorilla and numbering in their ranks are the likes of Aunt Jemima, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Elsie the Cow, the Morton Salt Girl and others…

Daniel Boon – Mr. Clean – Spuds Mackenzie – Mr. Whipple – Joe Isuzu – the California Raisins and Tony the Tiger and the charming granny that shouted the famous line “WHERES THE BEEF” for Wendy’s…. Or McGruff -the Crime Dog and Vince and Larry (the crash-test dummies).… the list of images/persona’s, people or creatures that have been used successfully in advertising is a long one.

They are all notable mascots, characters, and icons that have, in some way, become the brand itself. Their personalities are memorable, effective, and timeless.