Why is this Crash Test Dummy heading to Advertising Week?

The US Department of Transportation launched an iconic public service announcement in the 1980s featuring the now-famous Crash Test Dummies. So, what’s the secret to their endurance?

For a brand character to work, it needs to resonate with audiences. There isn’t exactly a guide book when it comes to creating an icon, especially as audiences continue to fragment, but there are some evergreen rules.

“Consensus is really bad because they end up like vanilla: everybody likes it, but nobody wants it,” said Linda Kaplan Thaler, the president of Kaplan Thaler productions who helped create the Aflac duck and the ‘I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us Kid’ jingle.

What people want is relatability, and that’s something brands can have a hard time achieving. Pat Giles, the creative director at Danger Pigeon Studios, believes brand characters with relatable conflicts resonate best with audiences.

“I think those characters are much more interesting to write for, and also to watch,” said Giles, who has lead creative assignments on icons like the Trix Rabbit and McGruff The Crime Dog. “When [a brand character] has that conflict, that inner conflict over what’s happening, you feel less like you’re being sold to.”

The progression of audience sophistication means consumers have “absorbed all the great tenets of a good brand character,” according to Giles. This is especially true in the digital space.

Social media allows for instant and unfiltered consumer feedback. It can act as a modern, digitized focus group changing how brands launch their campaigns.

“It’s not about ready, aim, fire,” said Kaplan Thaler, who sees the industry moving on from the deliberate, focus-grouping approach. “It’s ready, fire, aim.”

Icons that still resonate are ones that stay true to their brand’s core values. Reinventing a character may sound exciting, but it can alienate consumers. Rethinking how and where a brand character interacts with consumers is a more worthwhile strategy.

Giles highlighted the recent Mr. Clean campaign as a brilliant idea that “took a classic character and put a modern twist on it.” Using innovations in animation and CGI to reimagine the character as eye candy worked as a funny and engaging strategy.

Nice move! #MrClean #SB51 pic.twitter.com/j4dP8Jo8GI

— Mr. Clean (@RealMrClean) February 6, 2017

“In a world where personality is actually more important to your brand, brand characters have a bigger place, not a smaller place, in the social media world,” said Giles. “It’s hard for [marketers] to let the character out into the world and let people do with them what they will, because people can be jerks.”

Brand characters can be jerks, too, but that can sometimes be an advantage. Brands that understand the value of injecting personality and authenticity into their campaigns are more likely to wade through the “clutter,” something Kaplan Thaler did when creating the admittedly polarizing, yet memorable, Aflac duck.

When Kaplan Thaler first unveiled the Aflac duck, she remembered participants either loving or hating it, but they all remembered it. Deciding to give the duck an edge by having it kick pieces of bread was a “seminal moment” that would help leave an unforgettable mark in the mind’s of consumers.

The best characters, too, don’t eliminate consumers based on their profiles; they’re timeless and inclusive. Consumers – led by millennials and Gen Z – are more socially aware and self-aware, and icons that can align with their identity, inclusivity and social responsibility will make a lasting impact.

“Consumers, we learned, are no longer just buying product,” said Kapler Thalen, “They are buying into what that product or service represent.

“When you are just selling to consumers with no overarching sense of what the role is you are really playing in our lives today, then I think consumers don’t connect as much.”

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