Advertising character health development history. Advertising characters

To increase the communicative effectiveness of an advertising message, it is important to determine the characteristic features of the appearance and behavior of the advertising communicator. From the point of view of creating an advertising message as a product, communicators are people and characters who directly present a statement about the benefits of the TM.

Heroes help expand the circle of brand followers and positively influence attitudes towards the product. The personal qualities of the character are always transferred to the image of the advertised brand. But these benefits do not appear automatically. To obtain them, it is necessary to select the right presenter based on the communicative goals of the TM.

Situations When should you invite a presenter of an advertising message:

When one or more effects of communication require "amplification";

For high-involvement choice products - if the target audience is known to suffer from "information overload" (especially for brands addressed to an incompetent target audience).

The attitude towards the advertised product is primarily formed through the perception of the communicator (advertising character, presenter). Psychologists note that one individual’s perception of another always tends to form a certain generalized image, a simplified stereotype. In advertising communications, the process of generalizing images is even more pronounced, since the communicative act occurs under conditions of time shortage and a very narrow focus on the presentation of information. Thus, understanding the system of categories through which advertising characters are evaluated is extremely important for understanding the levers for managing advertising effectiveness.

Heroes advertisements can appear: In “celebrities.” The basic rule of such advertising is that the evidence of “stars” in favor of a trademark is more effective if, in addition to listing the benefits, “soft” counterarguments are presented. Thus, a “star”, talking about the advantages, may casually mention that the brand is most effective only in certain situations, is suitable for solving some problems and is not suitable for others.

- “stars” have a great ability to attract attention to the benefits of TM;

The target audience (or most of it) identifies itself with a famous person;

Famous individuals are not experts in most product categories. For example, Michael Jordan may be an expert on sports shoes, and Larisa Dolina may be an expert on weight loss, but they are not suitable for advertising technical products;

Famous personalities quickly lose consumer perceived credibility when repeatedly appearing in advertising;

Their participation serves as an alternative to inviting a celebrity, but is much cheaper;

Fantasy characters;

Typical representatives of the target audience are convinced consumers;

The greatest difficulty in developing advertising with the participation of an expert (or a convinced consumer, or a fantasy character) is the complexity of creating an adequate image, the reliability of which will be obvious. The “authenticity theory” developed by psychologists fully reflects one of the problems of advertising with the participation of characters: the audience only believes in the hero’s assurances when it cannot find the slightest sign of pretense. It is especially difficult to destroy such a common “sign of lying” as the material interest of the presenter, subjectively assessed by the consumer. Therefore, the plot structure of the advertisement should distract the target audience from forming arguments. Here, tools for increasing the emotionality of appeals and unexpectedness of statements come to the aid of the advertiser. At the same time, it is especially important to preserve the naturalness of the character’s reactions, despite all their obvious absurdity (children play with cartoon characters in the Nesquik “Red AP” advertisement; a Nuts bar comes to visit an animated stomach and brain; evil dirt penetrates everywhere, and everyone rushes to fight it new units of “Little Sorts”, etc.).

So, in conditions of scarcity of information and time, people tend to attribute reasons for behavior or some general characteristics to advertising characters. Attribution can be carried out at the subjective level by establishing associative connections with episodes of past experience. A stereotype, as a certain stable image, which is used as a well-known “abbreviation” in the field of advertising communications, functions as a generalized collective image of the brand itself. Advertising characters are perceived by consumers as the “face of the brand.” Therefore, the problem of choosing leading advertising messages must be approached very carefully.

J.R. Rossiter and L. Percy propose a tactical model for selecting a presenter (Table 3.1), based on establishing a correspondence between the characteristics of the presenter and communication goals.

Table 3.1. Leader selection model

The authors of the model recommend that the advertiser first test the bake llama without the participation of the presenter (i.e., only a voice-over is used). If it is necessary to increase the emphasis on the effects of communication, then it is necessary to check the options with the participation of an unfamous hero. If he cannot cope with the communication tasks, only then should celebrity candidates be considered .

Some prominent advertisers and PR people of the 20th century heralded a bright future for video advertising. They had no idea what technologies would soon be used in commercials. Digital animation, 3D effect - this was not even discussed, because half a century ago commercials were simply a collection of changing frames. However, in those days, marketers knew a technique that was already widely used to promote a brand - creating characters in an advertising video.

Where did you come from, advertising character?

The history of the creation of advertising characters begins at the beginning of the twentieth century. Poor artists, who somehow needed to earn a living, began to accept orders from private firms. First, an image was thought out that could attract the attention of buyers, then it was transferred to paper, then to all product packaging, advertising brochures and videos.

One day, American artist Haddon Sundblom was working on a character for Coca-Cola. He had a difficult task: to come up with an image that would attract buyers of a cool drink in the winter. Sundblom painted Saint Nicholas, who became known as Santa Claus. The funny old man immediately fell in love with everyone without exception. Riding around in a harness with a bottle of drink in his hands, in his white and red suit, he perfectly fit into the corporate style of the brand. It is believed that It is with this image, created in 1931, that the story of the advertising character begins.

The ideal advertising character: a recipe for creating

You can determine what the future advertising hero should be like only after familiarizing yourself with the manufacturer, its products and the target audience. However, marketers managed to develop general criteria that an advertising character must meet:

• attachment to a brand or product at the level of associations;
• presence of character - a clearly traceable line of behavior;
• consistency with the psychological or functional benefits of the product;
• positive, the image should not evoke negative emotions;
• displaying the interests and preferences of the target audience, national traditions;
• originality, uniqueness.

Cute, funny or courageous and courageous - advertising heroes are full of images and characters. They are created not at all in order to sell goods, but in order to sell emotions. Funny video from the company "Molokiya" about two cute cows is unlikely to go unnoticed by a demanding TV viewer.

This commercial is about the love between sourdough and milk. VIVO. The purpose of the video is simple - to show the consumer that as a result of mixing the branded starter and milk, yogurt will appear. Therefore, it is advisable to buy two products at once.

An advertising video allows you to create an animated character - to “revive” the image, therefore, today video advertising is at the peak of popularity. The main advantage of video is its dynamism, the ability to show the hero in motion, demonstrating his actions and character.

Video advertising allows a brand to influence the feelings and psychological attitudes of the consumer, because each image, each character has its own habits and habits. Animated advertising hero most endowed with human qualities, compared to images that are used, for example, on posters or advertising brochures.

Every brand has a certain life cycle. This is the time from its conception to its cessation of use. And every brand owner would like his brand to live longer and bring in as much profit as possible.

But brands lose popularity over time. Target audiences can completely change preferences, and the once desired brand again becomes an ordinary trademark. Sometimes completely dead. For example, it lies dead on a shelf in a supermarket and no one buys it... What should I do?

How to revive a brand?

An advertising or corporate hero is a special brand element that is used to give the brand human traits that are close to certain archetypes of the target audience. This is a certain visual image, animated creative or a real living person.

Hero Star

The “star”, which increases the brand’s popularity, plays the role of an “expert” who evaluates the brand, its “recommendator”, directly calling for its purchase, a “brand supporter” who constantly uses it, or the brand itself uses the “star” in some familiar role to the consumer or creates a new role that reflects the brand's messages.

A celebrity recommendation is evidence of not just the quality of the brand, but also the trust in the relationship between the brand and its target audience. By purchasing a brand, consumers also receive a feeling of belonging to a certain status, principles and images that have already been built by the “star”.

When using a celebrity as an advertising character, the brand manager faces the difficult task of forming a close relationship between the celebrity and the brand. This is the main condition for increasing the popularity of the brand.

Virtual or real?

But, as a rule, over time, the image of an advertising character is adjusted to meet the far from constant needs of the selected target audiences, so it is preferable to use a fictitious image rather than a real person, who is also endowed with personal characteristics and his own story.

Fictional characters are completely controllable. They won't cause a scandal, won't defect to a competitor, and won't die in the middle of an advertising campaign. Their characters and actions are determined by the branding agency.

Betrayal of the Hero

An argument in favor of a controlled animated character over a live actor can be an incident that has entered the annals of Russian advertising.

The popular Soviet actor Andrei Petrovich Gradov, a model of masculinity who evoked an unconditional positive reaction from the target audience, was invited to play the role of either a caretaker or a head waiter of a large restaurant, in which a huge amount of dishes simply needed to be washed. And the advertising hero performed by Andrei Gradov called Fairy, a product of Procter&Gamble, the best means for this. The commercial was successfully broadcast on all Russian television channels and, according to the company itself, contributed greatly to increasing sales.

However, after some time, another video was released, where Andrei Petrovich, no longer as an “advertising character” for Fairy, but as a “celebrity”, accidentally noticed using a competing AOS dishwashing detergent, explained that “work is work, and for the home we choose the best.” This “frankness” of the actor Gradov and the scandal surrounding the video contributed to the popularization of the AOS trademark, owned by the Kazan enterprise Nefis - Nefis Cosmetics OJSC.

In world practice, prohibiting an advertising character from using a competitor’s products is usually a mandatory clause of the contract, but in this case, the contract was not concluded as it should be and did not impose any obligations on Andrei Petrovich Gradov.

Not a single KOTE was damaged

You can do whatever you want with a cartoon advertising character. He not only represents the brand, but can get into absolutely fantastic situations and stay on his toes. Try turning a living actor inside out, slam him against a wall, or drop an anvil on him... And for the cartoon this is everyday work.

In the advertising video “A little cramped?”, filmed in the PR2B Group creative studio, the corporate hero of the development company EtalonInvest, the Cat, is put in the place of the target audience - buyers who are cramped in their apartments. The unfortunate man is subjected to completely sadistic tests. They push him, kick him, step on his tail, the apartment is not just overcrowded, but a mighty heap of people. The hunted cat puts on a diving mask and hides from this horror in a cramped, wet aquarium...

Attention! Do not experiment in this way with a live cat! If you remain unscratched to death, PETA or an army of housewives will deal with you. The animators’ bullying evokes sympathy and understanding, because the target audience has almost the same problem with expanding their living space. And participation means almost a willingness to buy an apartment in the “Emerald Hills” of Krasnogorsk (near Moscow), inexpensive by Moscow standards...

The best part is that not a single KOTE was harmed during filming.

The Invisible Hero

For example, in the advertising campaign “We are moving in - the house is rented out”, visualized by PR2B Group for the residential complex “Emerald Hills”, the advertising character already known to us - the Cat is present completely invisibly, as if connecting in the perception of reality with the target audience.

Here the advertising uses symbols associated with moving and finding “your corner”: a truck, boxes, a houseplant, a painting depicting your dream - the Emerald Hills residential complex, boundary tape and cozy cat slippers. And the graphic series is presented in such a perspective, as if you were that very promoted advertising character - a house-loving cat. Perfect communication between brand and consumer, isn't it?

Once upon a time there was a girl...

The development of the clothing brand for girls ALOLIKA involved the creation of an advertising character at the stage of not only the brand platform, but also the Creative Idea. Specialists from the creative studio PR2B Group initially wanted to support this Novosibirsk brand with an advertising character.

The brand name ALOLIKA was found using a unique resource that is closed to other branding agencies - the card index of the Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “Alolika” is an original Russian, historical word, used until the 17th century. and it means “beautiful”, “beauty”. This word is still used in the Baikal regions of Siberia as a dialectal adjective “alo-faced”, i.e. “beautiful”, which focuses on the regional component of the brand.

The animated advertising hero “Alolika” is a Russian girl, flesh and blood of the Siberian Land. She is beautiful, characterful and smiling. And she is tightly tied to the brand.

Indeed, her name fully corresponds to the name of the brand. And Alolika’s unruly red hair with a golden sparkle goes well with the Company’s iconic trademark – the sun stylized in the Byzantine style.

Alolika is not just a picture, she is an employee of the Company. Its main function is models. All dresses that are sewn by the sewing company are also presented in animated form, as clothing and the plot of the plot using an advertising character.

Alolika cuts and sews herself, shows and tells, advertises, consults clients online and even delivers products to consumers.

In addition, Alolika is a cheerful, mischievous child, captivating with her love of life - a desirable image for parents, establishing clear communication between customers and the brand.

According to Natalia Smirnova, owner of TM ALOLIKA, this trademark began to work immediately as a full-fledged and well-promoted brand:

What crisis? Now we are literally inundated with orders for the year ahead, we need to expand production!

Apple from the apple tree

Just to be. Why are we worse?

Let’s take for example the Sberbank character Sberochka, born in 2008. The female creature (because it had a skirt and ponytails with bows) of a poisonous green color resembled a Cheburashka with severed ears and a brain cut out of the skull (the authors don’t have a brain, so where can the advertising hero get it?). And her friend was just as brainless - Sberik. No, I'm not slandering this. Look for yourself - here they are, handsome...

Sberiks were originally created for corporate purposes. So why bother with behavioral characteristics and character? What brand platform? And kinesics (facial expressions, gestures, pantomime), in the understanding of the authors of these advertising characters, is an excess. But this is the basis for transmitting nonverbal messages. You never know what we want to show our employees and clients...

They simply took a graphic element of Sberbank (a stylized wallet) and drew eyes, a nose, a mouth and a body... It turned out to be a terrible sight... Children cried, old women crossed themselves, clients spat on the thresholds of Sberbank's additional offices... The ancephalic heroes did not survive, they were not included in the next rebranding of Sberbank.

Oh, who is this?

The naming of this store was based on a fictional animal (chimera), appearing in various folklore, literary and journalistic sources as a hoax or metaphor.

The advertising character of the same name as the store, “Horned Hare,” is used to attract consumers. He invites, points, shows, evaluates, comments. The character of the “Horned Hare” is made up of two opposites – a cowardly hare and a red deer. These opposites determine the versatility of using an advertising character. “The Horned Hare” is a silly cunning and...handsome guy. Being a joke, “The Horned Hare” loves jokes and makes them in immeasurable quantities. Often includes sayings, idioms, and euphemisms in his speech. It can be a Hero and a Clown, Santa's Helper and his DEER, or... Santa himself... It can be a Sign, a Life-Size Puppet, be present on pavement signs, backgrounds, and marketing materials. It could be a folklore element and a joke from the store staff “...we have everything, they even bring in horned hares...”.

For example, there is a brand of canned fish ARCTICFISH, we need a character.

First, let's look at the brand platform. What data does a consumer survey provide? What's in the buyer Pareto core? What is the brand’s mission, values ​​and messages? What policy? What communications?

How to connect the ARCTICFISH trademark and the advertising character? The fish is too “on the surface”. It's more about the character's FOOD than the character itself. Let's leave it for the logo. The fish logo is right in the forehead. Maybe he'll nail it. But an advertising character is something else. He should be nearby soon. Do something with the brand and praise it. Which means there is! Who eats fish in the Arctic? Chukchi, Eskimos? Let's remember it as an option.

A black and white contrasting and recognizable penguin would be nice, but people would laugh - Antarctic penguins live.

Gulls, albatrosses, skuas and Gorky petrels are aggressive and uncharacteristic. Their eyes are small, expressionless, like buttons. And the wings with the carcass are somewhat limited in gestures and pantomime. The kinesics of these characters are weak. It will be fine for a cartoon, but in printed graphics it will be difficult to show the dynamics of movement, with the exception of flight.

Maybe a bear, so it's white? No, not like that! And not like that!

No male aggression or animal realism! Strong, but kinder, more smiling!

This white bear looks like both the beloved domestic baby UMKU and the funny Belgian bungler BERNARD. Cute and Humanized. Full and Satisfied.

And personal characteristics correspond to those that are positively perceived by the consumer. There is an identification of the advertising character with the consumer, which means there is a feeling of the brand. If such a bear advises you to eat ARCTICFISH fish, you will fall for it and gobble it up! But what about it - polar bears recommend it!

Now let’s tie it to the brand with another string! Go ahead, give him a soft claw logo for more brand recognition! And the eyes are bigger and more expressive, and the smile and the nose are turned up!

Ready! Now for pre-testing, for a neurometric study of brand perception! How is it perceived? Perfect!

Agency in boots

Our agency also has an animated advertising character - his name is Panteleimon R. Tubiev or P.R.Tubiev. He is a multi-creator (because he is both a cartoonist and a creative person) and one of the company’s contact persons, responsible for the PR2B Group’s image on twitter and skype... They say that communicating with him is a pleasure, try it!

Hero, what are you?

The right advertising hero is always tightly tied to the brand. Or nailed down. It can be associated with the brand by its name, worn or present figurative trademark, brand colors and fonts, legend, biography, messages, kinesics (facial expressions, gestures, pantomime) and actions.

The individuality of an advertising hero is formed through the assignment of personal characteristics that are positively perceived by the target audience - socio-demographic, geographical, psychographic and motivational, which, in turn, leads to the capitalization of the emotional component of the accompanied brand.

Advertising characters create additional opportunities for consumers to connect with brands. Heroes demonstrate the product, recommend it, give the brand status and emotional overtones, contribute to its memorability and popularization.

In the era of clip consciousness, new media interactive technologies connecting heroes and their fans will be increasingly used to introduce brands into the mass consciousness and create a new brand reality.

An advertising hero transforms both a product and a brand, conveys to them some human qualities and turns on the emotional mechanism of influence. This is not just an intermediary, but a moderator, an initiator of communication between a product and a consumer, who makes the virtual world of advertising similar to reality and brings it closer to the consumer.

Ideally, all verbal, visual, auditory, dynamic and behavioral characteristics of the advertising character are built in accordance with the brand platform and are fixed by the regulations for managing the advertising character.

The general tendency to increase the emotionality of advertising, characteristic of a highly competitive crisis period, gives us the prospect of becoming acquainted with new advertising characters and new forms of their presentation.

Advertising character -- This is an original object (an animal, a person, a tube, etc.) drawn in a certain style, which the consumer associates with the company’s product or service and is used to create a positive perception of promotions. An advertising character can be static or animated.

Everyone knows that advertising characters help to better remember a brand and distinguish it from numerous competitors. Just remember the success of Tony the Tiger with his cereal or Kwiki the rabbit with cocoa, chocolates and a number of other products under the Nesquik brand. Successful characters only help the brand. This has been known for a long time.

At the same time, characters, of course, are most often found when it comes to products for children. But not only. Bibendum, one of the most famous advertising characters in history, was developed for Michelin tires. For about 100 years, Bibendum has appeared wherever Michelin advertising is concerned. And it clearly gives the company some advantage.

Who is Michelin's main competitor in the market, and at the same time tries to advertise through the same channels? Usually these are Bridgestone, Good Year and Nokian. But the advertising of all these companies is not nearly as noticeable as in the case of Michelin. They are too similar to each other, and simple inscriptions with images of tires are unlikely to interest anyone during a car race or visiting a gas station. The same cannot be said about Bibendum, who always attracts attention. In this regard, Michelin's advantage is undeniable.

In general, it is believed that ideally a corporate hero should evoke some kind of association with the product. It is possible that to some extent this is true. For example, Bibendum itself consists of tires. And in his early advertising campaign he swallowed nails as if he were drinking beer. Thus, the company showed that its tires are not afraid of various obstacles on the roads. Including nails.

The hare in the Duracell battery advertisement constantly competes with his colleagues. Alas, they have no chance. When they are already disconnected, our hero just goes on a date with his girlfriend. In this case, through entertaining videos featuring a funny character, we are shown the clear advantage of Duracell batteries - they simply last longer.

But Tony the tiger is unlikely to be so clearly associated with his product. He is a complete standalone character who made the product famous. And now it’s simply impossible to imagine Kellog’s corn flakes without it. He became the key to their success.

The symbol of the McDonald's company is the clown Ronald McDonald. He was born in 1963, when the owner of one of the McDonald's franchises began to promote his restaurant with the help of a multi-colored clown who visited children in schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and distributed leaflets on the street. The clown became so popular that he soon worked not only for one local restaurant, but for the entire McDonald's chain. Today, Ronald McDonald is a symbol of the brand.

The characters have another important quality - they simply entertain people. Many of them look funny, thereby earning our trust. A successful character can differentiate a brand from its competitors. Statistics show that people are much more likely to remember brands that feature a character rather than a generic logo. In such cases, the degree of memorability increases by approximately 15%. Agree that this is not so little.

The Coca-Cola company went even further in terms of creating characters - it began to use Santa Claus himself in its advertising. Many even said that it was in this company that this old man was invented! Or, at worst, they gave it a modern look - red and white clothes. None of this is true. Santa existed long before Coca-Cola. And it was even used in advertising of other drinks. It just so happened that it was in the Coca-Cola advertising that Santa Claus received the most successful image, and this campaign exists to this day (and it began in the 30s of the last century).

What about the M&M characters? You probably know them all. Yellow and red candies that melt not in your hands, but in your mouth. They have become so popular that advertising M&M without them seems simply unthinkable. Many people are waiting for a new commercial with this couple. After all, to some extent it resembles a real cartoon, i.e. he simply entertains the audience. And that's a fact. Such popularity of the characters has led to them being produced as simple toys. And this is a source of additional income.

We see that characters that are part of a brand are present in many industries. These are not only products for children, where they are de facto very popular. Bibendum clearly played an important role in the popularization of Michelin tires. And this is not a children's product at all. But are brands possible where the character is an ordinary person? Quite. Suffice it to recall the legendary Marlboro cowboy. Before its appearance, Marlboro cigarettes were considered feminine. Cowboy had to radically change the product positioning. He succeeded. And this advertising campaign not only continues to some extent to this day, but has also become one of the most successful in history. Marlboro cigarettes today enjoy deserved popularity all over the world. This would hardly have been possible if the Marlboro cowboy had not appeared at one time...

Serious organizations also do not shy away from their characters. So, such a character at Merrill Lynch bank has long been a bull. Of course, this is the exception rather than the rule. Most banks and companies of this level are too strict. Characters are the province of FMCG brands, simple consumer goods like tires. This type of marketing is designed for the masses.