Branding Social Media

Tony. The King. The Captain. The Gecko. They are all ferociously joining your ranks on social media sites. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when the M&M’s start tweeting. That’s right, I’m talking about brand mascots, and they have also jumped on the social media bandwagon.

Mascots have been used for decades to increase brand awareness and create a more personal connection between consumer and business. Mostly relegated to meet and greets and traditional media, mascots haven’t had much exposure to status updates and 180 character limits. Until now.

With sites like Facebook and Twitter, brands now have a place to create a more personal and interactive relationship with consumers by using their mascot. The brand mascots that people have come to know and love are able to show off their unique personalities, while still promoting their company. Utilizing the mascot on social media allows companies to bridge the gap between professionalism and approachability.

Beth Mansfield, director of public relations for Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, (whose mascot is Happy Star) puts it nicely, “With social media you have to be engaging and have a one-on-one voice. It’s much easier to have that one voice be Happy Star instead of the marketing department of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s. If we signed our Facebook posts ‘from the marketing department,’ that would be a little awkward.”

Some of the more recent social media mascot campaigns include the ReuniteM Campaign with M&M’s, and Flo, the Progressive Insurance Girl. The ReuniteM campaign is offering consumers a chance to win prizes for finding the five M&M characters together. You just have to buy selected packages of M&M’s milk chocolate candies and look for all the five characters printed under the wrapper. The candy brand has about 2.2million fans on Facebook, where the “yellow” M&M posts updates.

Flo, the Progressive Insurance mascot, has also become increasingly social. She has her own Facebook page separate from Progressive Insurance. With over 3 million likes, her fan page allows people to interact with Flo’s character, while gaining exposure for Progressive.

I’m sure more and more brands will recognize the potential social media has for increasing mascot value, and in turn, increasing product value. It’s a great way to have consumers connect with the often original and entertaining spokespeople, cartoons and characters of companies. Now if only I could Facebook chat the Aflac duck...

Feeling Blue: The Most Popular Brand Colors Online

It's a gloomy, rainy day here at the office, so I've decided to brighten things up a little bit. It all started a couple of weeks ago when one of us remarked that all of the major social media channels' logos (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) were blue.

Following up on what other info was out there, I started browsing the web (one of the few things I can still do with a cast on my hand) and found a great infographic from COLOURlovers that answered my question. Basically they compiled the logo colors for the top 100 brands online (you can find the infographic here), and some interesting patterns emerge.

Blue was by far the most-used color with a solid 35-40% percent of the top 100 brands using it. Red came in second, being used by about 18% of the top brands, meaning that almost two-thirds of the top brands online base their color scheme around blue or red.

What surprised me was the lack of big online brands that use green, purple, or pink. Only 4 brands use green, 4 use purple and just 3 brands are pink. And when it comes to the big online brands that don't use any color (blacks, whites and grays), the numbers are just as low with only 5 or 6 brands falling into that category.

So, obviously color is important. But if you can't pick just one color to go with for your brand, don't rule out the option of going with all of them. That's because 3 of the top 10 web brands have a multicolored/rainbow color scheme, including the top two brands (Google and MSN/Windows Live/Bing).

In our increasingly-visual culture, the color you base your logo on is important because it will dictate many of the design choices you make for your brand as a whole. And whether you go with a proven winner like blue or take the road less-traveled by using green or purple, putting a lot of thought into your brand's color palette is a crucial step in establishing a brand identity.

Marketing with Chaos

This week, we have seen a few big discussions on the validity of a product or message due to their apparently chaotic image being portrayed (Pepsi logo redesign, Jaoquin Phoenix on Letterman).

These things may be real or they may be fake, but I think that maybe marketers are using confusion to create buzz.

While a clear, solid message is often the best approach, disorder, brand inconsistency, and chaos often get just as much attention, whether it is on purpose or not.

Do You Have A Goal For Your Personal Brand?

I have been thinking a lot lately about online identity and personal brand. Many people work very hard to create their online brand identity starting at the bottom and building upwards with hard work, persistence, and transparency. Some reach a place of not only familiarity, but of credibility on a certain subject. When I think about what it is I would build my reputation on, I often come back to one interesting question: What is the ultimate goal?


U2 is the arguably still the biggest rock band in the world. Their front man, Bono, has been given charming charisma and a winning personality and he could be easily satisfied with just making music and touching people through songs (which is not necessarily bad). His personal brand has reached a height that gives him a platform and the attention of the world's listening ears. I believe that Bono, not settling into his position for what it is, uses his personal brand for a higher purpose. Instead of sitting back and basking in rock-star glory, he acts differently. Bono often comments about the absurdity that a rock-star can get an audience with the world's political leaders and multi-million dollar corporation CEOs , but he also realizes the importance of taking his opportunity no matter how it comes. He reaches out using his personal brand and position and now has literally affected millions of people all over the world as a champion of poverty, AIDS awareness, and international advocacy.

The quest for online notoriety often times seems selfish to me. If I were to build my name up to a point of credibility, would it just be for me or could I do it for something more than myself? The position of fame for fame's sake is an easy place to stop, but we must all ask ourselves why we work so hard and what the goal of all our efforts could be. At the end of the day, what will we make of our personal brand?

Are You Choosing Where To Leave Fingerprints?

Classic rock band Yes was planning a 40th anniversary reunion tour this past summer, but when their lead singer was suffering from respiratory problems, they had to cancel. The band decided to recruit a new singer for the tour, turning to YouTube for possible candidates. After Yes saw Benoit David performing in his Yes cover band online, they hired him for the gig. After Boston's lead singer passed away last year, the band also searched YouTube and MySpace, finding Tommy DeCarlo to tour with them for their 2008 shows.

A lot of people have their name out on the internet with no intentional purpose of marketing themselves. Whether its a home video on YouTube, a blog post, or even a cover song on MySpace, these components make up someone's online identity - whether they take control of it or not.

You may be leaving your fingerprints everywhere online, but are you taking control of your personal brand through intentional and crafted actions? Whether you want it to or not, your actions online will not only be around forever, but they will represent you. This isn't a blog about not posting stupid pictures or crass comments on Facebook giving potential employeers reasons not to hire you (these behaviors should be an obvious no-no by now), but its about being proactive and not reactive. Instead of letting your brand or image form outside of your control, we all have a choice to be involved with what is portrayed by being active and purposeful. Sure, you might unintentionally do good things that get you noticed like Yes' new lead singer, but what if we all became more conscience of our fingerprints? Are you planning enough for your future?