What does it mean for a brand to take ownership of a character?

We know that characters bring value to brands and humanize them, whether they exist or not. They provide that sense and attribute, both psychological and emotional, that the product does not have on its own.

For the brand they end up becoming such an essential component that it gives life to the product, the service or the company it is trying to reach. One of the goals is to become that example to follow, so that the public recognizes them, generating a more human sense where trust and closeness to people abound. It must not be reduced to a simple symbol since this element has to encompass an identity beyond the conventional.

This figure represents the brand much more than we can imagine. It is what gives us access to the values, what establishes the emotional bond with the users and what breaks through the screen to go beyond the imaginary world.

Now, let us take the famous case of Santa Claus. One of the central characters and the global icon of Christmas over 200 years, and whose image is recognized by every child and adult all over the world.

Let us learn a little about how he came about. His basis begins as a historical character: Saint Nicholas of Bari, a Christian bishop who lived between the 3rd and 4th centuries in the region of Lycia, now Turkey. Around his figure several stories and legends have arisen that tell of his kindness. One of them tells that a father of humble origins had three daughters who could not marry because they did not have the necessary dowry, which was a synonym for shame for their family. Having heard of this, Saint Nicholas secretly left bags with gold coins for each of the young women, dropping them through a window and landing on the girls’ stockings that hung over the fireplace. That is where the myth that he cannot be seen comes from.

There is a fact known to everyone: his close relationship with Coca-Cola. The multinational’s goal was to “create a character halfway between the symbolic and the real, the personification of the Christmas spirit and the happiness of Coca-Cola”. And so it was that, in 1931, they managed to kill two birds with one stone: promote their drink as a refreshment for any time of year and reach a new market segment thanks to Santa’s affable charisma: children. Not only did they achieve it but, having unified criteria regarding Santa Claus’s nature: he is now universally red, chubby and with a long white beard. Linking in this way, forever and thanks to the power of advertising, the name of their brand with that of Christmas through the sharpness of their advertisers, who left him red forever.

We conclude that graphic characters often generate that share of humanity that not only creates value, but allows the brand to be communicated and positioned from another place so that our audience can see it from a closer perspective.

Source: PublicidadUCH