Chasing brand mascot: Vodafone brings iconic pug back for a new campaign

Do mascots help or hinder a brand's growth?

Vodafone India’s latest advertising campaign brings back the brand’s iconic ‘Cheeka the pug’, several of them in fact, recreating an image that the brand crafted for itself over a decade ago. While the company says that the pug acts as a powerful clutter breaker in an industry that is becoming increasingly defined by cheap plans and aggressive discounts, experts are divided over whether mascots are a boon or a bane. Do they help a brand move with the times or do they hold it back?

The first Vodafone ad with the pug appeared in 2003. It showed Cheeka following a boy throughout the day and was an instant hit, so much so that it led to a sharp spike in the demand for the particular dog breed as a pet. “Our consumer immersion tells us that the pug is remembered strongly as a icon, this approach provides us with a simple clutter breaking device in a cluttered advertising and communication environment,” said Siddharth Banerjee, executive vice president, Marketing, Vodafone India. 

The pug serves as a ready reminder of the brand’s longstanding association with the Indian consumer. It takes the brand’s story forward without having to expend too much energy over a fresh narrative. “The primary outcome of the advertisement may be in helping the company reconnect with customers emotionally in a business that has become increasingly commoditised,” said N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA, a brand insights agency. But does it tie the brand down to an old character, not letting it evolve with the times?   

Vodafone India terms the pug as a ‘long term metaphor for the network’s reliable network’. It is using multiple pugs for its new #StrongerTogether campaign. “Refreshing icons is always difficult. People still remember our first boy and dog ad and even the line ‘wherever you go, our network follows’. The challenge was to convey the new network proposition, ‘we are getting stronger’, while retaining the simplicity and charm of our most loved asset,” said Kiran Antony, executive creative director, Ogilvy & Mather, the agency behind the campaign, in a press statement. 

However reinventing or recycling old mascots could render the message irrelevant. “The unique one-to-one relationship between Cheeka and his boss had warmth and personalisation. The current ad may be showing each pug equal to one tower but the essence of the earlier relationship has been compromised and lost,” said Sandeep Goyal, brand consultant. 

Mascots, the successful ones, embed themselves deep into the consumers’ psyche. And therefore brands have to be careful how they use or reuse them because if fans dislike their new avatars, they could retract from the brand altogether. Goyal says that mascots were born in an era when most consumers could not read and write. The picture of the mascot would be the aide memoire. He gives the example of how cigarettes were recognised by the camel on a Camel cigarette pack and the Marlboro man on the Marlboro pack respectively.

Brand mascots have come a long way since then, they are tell the brand’s story and capture its personality. “Mascots, if conceptualised and built well, have the ability to take on the softer anthropomorphic aspects of the brand that a logo alone may not be able to exude. It can connect with audiences in subtler ways than the brand in its other communication. Over time, it can also have conversations with the audiences in more engaging ways,” says Chandramouli.

A mascot is also an inexpensive way to create a memorable association for a brand. Celebrity endorsers that perform a similar role come for a hefty price and they often dilute the brand’s value by appearing for multiple product categories at the same time. Mascots offer exclusivity at a lower price point. “Celebrity endorsement has only a partial overlap with mascots. Today one celebrity has many brands. Therefore, the role being played by the celebrity for memorability gets reduced tremendously,” said Goyal. 

Vodafone India refers to its mascots—the pugs, ZooZoos and the recent Asha-Bala couple as ‘celebrity icons.’ “The enduring belief at Vodafone India is that our brand is bigger than any celebrity. Hence, while we have utilised various popular and well-known names in our advertising over the years, we have not needed celebrity brand endorsements for Vodafone,” said Banerjee. 

A mascot lends itself to reuse, which is a big plus, but it also needs to evolve. Experts say that the brand mascot must keep pace with the product, the category and the customer. The 'Amul Girl' for instance has stayed relevant and still retained her original charm. However, not all mascots are as fortunate; Asian Paints had an extremely powerful mascot in Gattu (a small boy on a ladder with a half open can of paint) but it would not fit with the needs of the brand or consumers today and was wisely abandoned by the company quite some time ago.  “Unless the mascot adapts to changing audiences, it will become less relatable,” said Chandramouli. According to Goyal, it is not the mascots but the teams behind them that fail the brand. “You have to tell stories, real stories with those mascots. Only then can one fully utilise the versatility of the mascot,” he added.