Once upon a time, mascots were the belles of the branding ball. Now, they’re the pitiful pariahs.

Creating vessels for your audience to emotionally connect with seems like such a slam dunk… so why did they fall out of favour? How much value are we leaving off the table by excluding them? And why is the popular storytelling landscape now right for their triumphant return?

These are the questions I’ll be answering in this blog. But to get there, we must begin at the end… of a peanut’s life. Mr. Peanut died in 2020. Don’t worry, he got… better? Resurrected? Reincarnated?

I’m not exactly sure. That’s not important. What is important is that I know Mr. Peanut died. Because I live in Australia. On the other side of the world. I’m reasonably sure I had never heard of Planters, the nut brand that Mr. Peanut represents, until the death of Mr. Peanut. So why was the response to Mr. Peanut’s death so significant and widespread that I heard about it? Why did so many people care? Why did Planters make a thing of it at all, when they (or any other brand) would never drop advertising money on promoting the retirement of a logo or a tagline? Or, to simplify the line of inquiry somewhat:

Why are mascots special?

I actually think the simplest and sharpest explanation can be found in this moment from the pilot episode of the sitcom COMMUNITY, written by creator and showrunner Dan Harmon:

Jeff:
You know what makes humans different from other animals?

Troy:
Feet!

Pierce:
No, no, no, come on. Bears have feet.

Jeff:
We’re the only species on Earth that observes Shark Week. Sharks don’t even observe Shark Week, but we do, for the same reason I can pick up this pencil, tell you its name is Steve, and go like this —

[Jeff snaps pencil in two, to the shock and discomfort of the others]

Jeff:
— and part of you dies, just a little bit, on the inside. Because people can connect with anything. We can sympathize with a pencil, we can forgive a shark and we can give Ben Affleck an Academy Award for screenwriting.

That’s it. That’s all it is. We’re a social species, so wired to empathise and sympathise that when someone puts a rudimentary face on a vacuum cleaner, you instantly become more attached to it. What, you think you’re immune? You think nothing can make you emotionally connect to a vacuum cleaner? Okay.

Meet Henry Hoover. He loves you. Do you love him back?

Then look into Henry’s eyes and tell him you wouldn’t feel so much as a twinge of something if a sledgehammer shattered his face. Yeah. I thought so.

Don’t feel bad! It’s a good thing! It’s good that we’re pushed by our biology to care about (and be invested in) other people. But, since brains aren’t perfect machines, there’s a bit of a bleed effect and we can be tricked into caring about ‘people’ that don’t exist and aren’t human. Quite easily, as it turns out.

But that leads us to another big question: if it’s so easy and so powerful, why are brand mascots so poorly regarded and relatively uncommon? I have a theory — but to unpack it, I’m going to have to ask you to bear with me, just a little bit. It’s going to feel like a bit of a detour, but I promise it’s going to be important — plus, we’ll get to talk about Fleabag and Mickey Mouse a bit, so it shouldn’t feel too much like homework.

To truly understand mascot history, we’re first going to have to define some terms: ‘modernism’, ‘postmodernism’ and ‘metamodernism’. For the sake of expediency and sanity, though, I’d like you to limit yourself to considering how these terms apply to popular storytelling.

Modernism

In the modernist era, popular storytelling tended to uncritically champion common ideals and reaffirm mainstream values. At their core, modernist stories have the message: ‘We can create or find divine order and true meaning in the world.’

“It is possible to define modernism … <as> any initiative in the cultural, social or political sphere which seeks to restore a sense of sublime order and purpose to the contemporary ‘world’, thereby counteracting the (perceived) erosion of an overarching ‘nomos’ or ‘sacred canopy’ under the fragmenting and secularizing impact of modernity.” — from Roger Griffin’s article ‘Modernity, modernism, and fascism. A “mazeway resynthesis”’,
— published by Johns Hopkins University Press

Postmodernism

In the postmodernist era, popular storytelling deconstructed, parodied and mocked mainstream values and celebrated detachment, irony and skepticism. At their core, postmodernist stories have the message: ‘Divine order and true meaning do not exist, and it’s absurd to even attempt to find or create them.’

“While encompassing a broad range of ideas, postmodernism is typically defined by an attitude of skepticism, irony or rejection towards grand narratives, ideologies and various tenets of universalism, including objective notions of reason, human nature, social progress, moral universalism, absolute truth, and objective reality. … Accordingly, postmodern thought is broadly characterized by tendencies to epistemological and moral relativism, pluralism, irreverence and self-referentiality.”
— from the book ‘Origins of Sociological Theory’ by Arris Dorsey and Readale Collier, published by ED-Tech Press

Metamodernism

We’re now moving into the metamodernist era, and popular stories leading the charge in this critically examine and deconstruct mainstream ideas and institutions… but, having done so, then attempt to find some relative meaning in what is left. At their core, metamodernist stories have the message: ‘Divine order and objective meaning may not exist, but striving to create meaning is a valuable and worthwhile part of what makes us human.’

1. We recognise oscillation to be the natural order of the world.

2. We must liberate ourselves from the inertia resulting from a century of modernist ideological naivety and the cynical insincerity of its antonymous bastard child.

3. Movement shall henceforth be enabled by way of an oscillation between positions, with diametrically opposed ideas operating like the pulsating polarities of a colossal electric machine, propelling the world into action.
— from the ‘Metamodernist Manifesto’ by Luke Turner

How these movements have shaped popular storytelling for generations

I know that last part was a lot to take in. But it’s a lot easier to understand in practice — and if you want a clear example of how the transitions from modernism to postmodernism to metamodernism have fundamentally defined popular storytelling, you only have to look to that shining bastion of human culture… the TV sitcom.

Modernist sitcoms

Modernist sitcoms uncritically affirmed societal norms and values, and were sentimental to a fault. LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, for example, wasn’t about deconstructing or reevaluating the family unit — it was about celebrating (a certain type of idealised) American family, and promoting its virtues. Community values are sacred, and much is taboo.

In modernist sitcoms, meaning is reinforced.

Postmodernist sitcoms

Postmodernist sitcoms focused on tearing down institutions and societal norms, proudly mocking attempts to find meaning and revolting against sentiment. Sarcasm was extremely prevalent, and earnestness was treated derisively. An easy way to identify a postmodernist sitcom is to identify what they’re about (or, rather, not about), and how the show perceives its central characters. Postmodernist sitcoms are usually either about deconstructing a certain idea, or simply not about anything at all… and the central characters are usually bad (if sympathetic) people, who are representatives of what postmodernism perceives to be an intractably flawed and meaningless society. SEINFELD, the most popular postmodernist sitcom, is probably its best representative — with the show’s creators openly describing it as “a show about nothing”, and the central characters being undeniably awful people (so much so that the finale ends with them all sentenced to prison, bickering with each other in a small cell until the fade-out).

In postmodernist sitcoms, meaning is deconstructed.

Metamodernist sitcoms

Metamodernist sitcoms don’t hold any particular sitcoms or institutions as sacred, and aren’t afraid to challenge them, but also earnestly and positively portray searches for meaning (such as the creation of ‘found families’). Sentiment isn’t taboo, but must be earned, and characters are deeply flawed, but do try to be good people. FLEABAG is a good example, here: the titular Fleabag might seem, from an outsider’s perspective, to be a thoroughly postmodernist protagonist, railing against the Catholic church and societal norms… but through fourth-wall-breaking narration, we’re able to understand her perspective, and can see that her deconstruction of the systems around her is part of a painful-and-genuine search for meaning and a place in the world.

Alternatively, you can look at PARKS AND RECREATION to see how metamodernism treats institutions — the strange and frustrating flaws of local government aren’t hidden, they’re exposed and openly mocked… but this happens as the central characters navigate and reckon with these flaws on their mission to do genuinely good work for their local community.

In metamodernist sitcoms, false/inauthentic meaning is deconstructed, and earned meaning is constructed.

The colourful modernism spectrum

So if you’re starting to get a sense of the three modernism phases, you’ve probably picked up on a less-than-intuitive reality: though we’ve moved through them in the order of modernism > postmodernism > metamodernism, if you consider them in terms of how they shape popular storytelling, it makes more sense to think of them in this order, on a spectrum: modernism – metamodernism–postmodernism. Or, if we were to illustrate this in a more colourful way:

On one end of the spectrum, we have Mickey Mouse — he’s very sweet, he’s very earnest, and he loves and enjoys things sweetly and earnestly. He believes in love and friendship and wholesome fun. On the other end, you have Bugs Bunny — who doesn’t stand for (or seemingly believe in) anything, and exists exclusively to mock, deconstruct and provide sarcastic, running commentary on the failings of others.

In the middle, you have Rick (from RICK AND MORTY): a hyper-intelligent, often-bitter, often-nihilistic deconstructor — but one who, in his own quietly tragic way, is earnestly searching for meaning in a universe that science has rendered meaningless (to him).

Here, you can clearly see the elements of modernism and postmodernism counter-balanced — the deconstruction of established meaning championed by the latter, paired with the value of meaning and earnestness championed by the former.

This is the central thesis of metamodernism: that nothing in life can be perfect, and nothing is inherently meaningful… but if we’re honest with ourselves and work at it, some things in life can be good, and meaningful to us.

(As a bit of a side-note, the cartoon character spectrum also provides some interesting commentary about the staying power of modernism and postmodernism. Mickey Mouse’s popularity was front-loaded — the height of his popularity was the first few decades of his existence, during modernism’s heyday. Bugs Bunny, on the other hand, saw his popularity explode in the 1990s, when postmodernism in popular storytelling peaked. In recent years, though, Bugs Bunny has fallen dramatically out of favour, while Mickey has made a quiet resurgence — demonstrating that, in a metamodernist world, (well-executed) modernism is more appreciated than archetypal post-modernism. This is just speculation on my part, but if I were to try and explain this, I guess I’d say: these days, nuance is ideal, but if that’s not on the table, shallow-and-nice makes for a more pleasant experience than shallow-and-snarky.)

Wait, weren’t we talking about mascots at some point?

Right! Yes. Now that we’ve got a basic understanding of modernism, postmodernism and metamodernism, we can look at how these phases affected brand mascots over time.

It’s, uh… not pretty.

Mascots of modernism

Mascots had their heyday in the modernist era, when sentiment could be presented without the likelihood of critical examination, and didn’t really need to be substantiated. You could almost hear the marketing execs saying, “Look, he’s a tiger and the sugared corn makes him happy! Whaddya want from us??”

While they were positive and often endearing, on reflection, most are quite fairly regarded as one-dimensional and inauthentic.

Mascots of postmodernism

Mascots had an uncomfortable transition into the era of postmodernist storytelling. Unable to truly deconstruct what they stood for (as brands didn’t want to genuinely criticise themselves), mascots were left to awkwardly ape the affectations of post-modernism — the disaffected attitude (hence the alarming abundance of sunglasses) and immature absurdism (hence the… whatever it is that The Noid has going on).

Once these affectations fell out of favour, mascots (long since stripped of earnest meaning) were left with nothing, and disappeared (with the exception of a few that had the brand equity to trade exclusively on nostalgia).

Early steps towards metamodernist mascots

Ollie (Optus) / Wenlock and Mandeville (2012 Summer Olympics) / The Man Your Man Could Smell Like (Old Spice) / Gritty (Philadelphia Flyers)

Early forays into metamodernist mascots have had led to mixed results. Wenlock and Mandeville (the London 2012 Summer Olympic mascots), as well as Ollie (the short-lived Optus mascot), succeeded in avoiding both the trite, unsubstantiated earnestness of modernist mascots and the disaffected cynicism of post-modernist mascots… but without meaningful links to the values of the brand, they floundered.

Old Spice’s ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ and Philadelphia Flyers NHL mascot Gritty both acknowledge and embrace the absurdity of mascots, and are clearly self-aware… but they also proudly and genuinely champion the ideals of their brands (redefined manliness, and rough-edged, working-class grit). Why did these latter examples work? Why is the right time for a mascot resurgence?

It’s a mascot’s world… so why aren’t we living in it?

Postmodernism in popular storytelling nearly killed the brand mascot. There could hardly be a movement more ill-suited to mascots — so not only did mascots (mostly) die, they died so visibly and awfully that ‘mascot’ has become a dirty word. I think this is why so many brand stewards are gun-shy when it comes to mascots. And that’s a damn shame.

Because they should be thriving. With our global social, political and natural environments becoming ever bleaker, we have no time or patience for unconstructive cynicism. People are increasingly looking for brands with strong values — but substantiated, genuine values, presented with self-awareness and respect for our intelligence.

Mascots have the ability to serve as vessels for our goodwill. And while we don’t want to be asked to offer our goodwill uncritically or thoughtlessly, we also don’t want to be mocked for expressing and celebrating that goodwill when it’s earned. That’s the very essence of metamodernism.

The successful mascots of the future will be able to laugh with us about the absurdity of mascots — but also earnestly and genuinely celebrate and reinforce the values we share with the brand.

If mascots are so appropriate to this time in history, why aren’t they making someone rich?

What if I told you… they already are. *record scratch sound* Yes, that’s right. There is a land where mascots were never shunned. Where they continue to thrive, and be profoundly successful. No, it’s not some alternate-history Earth. It’s Japan.

Meet Domo.

Or, perhaps you already have. It’s likely he, at very least, sparks some sort of recognition in your brain — because Domo is a merchandising colossus.

“At the time NHK-BS (the satellite division) was enthusiastic about doing things that the main broadcaster, NHK, would never do. So they decided they didn’t just want something cute and perfectly behaved, but a character with more mystery.” — Creator Tsuneo Goda

Well, they got it. Domo’s wild and mysterious way has captured the hearts of millions — taking him on a journey from his first appearances (30-second stop motion-animated station interstitials) to… well, just about anything you can imagine. Domo now appears on over 600 Domo-branded products, from dolls, to keychains, to underwear.

Meet Kumamon.

Kumamon was created by the government of the Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan, in an effort to draw tourists to the region after the then-new Kyushu Shinkansen (high-speed rail) line opened. Obviously, Kumamon is extremely cute, and if you disagree we are enemies-for-life and it’s pistols at dawn for us, reader. But there’s more to Kumamon’s success than those rosy-red cheeks — Kumamon has also benefitted from an unusual marketing strategy that grants free usage rights for Kumamon’s likeness to anyone, as long as they’re using him to promote goods and services from the prefecture.

According to a recent Bank of Japan study, in his first two years of existence Kumamon generated US$90 million worth of free publicity, and economic benefits for the Kumamoto Prefecture to the tune of US$1.2 billion.

That’s right, ‘billion’ with a ‘b’.

One. Point. Two. Billion. United. States. Dollars.

!!!!!

How do Japanese mascots reach such lofty heights?

I think there’s quite a lot we can learn from them:

• They’re designed from the start to exist across many different mediums. It’s likely your audience will encounter your brand in many different mediums, so your mascot should be able to flex to meet them there too.

• They’re not afraid of unfettered enthusiasm (when the situation calls for it). People love loving things. And they love loving things that love things. Enthusiasm isn’t uncool anymore. Thank God.

• They’re not afraid of strangeness. Trying to articulate brand values in the form of a character is a strange undertaking, and the results, even when done well, will quite likely be strange. But that’s okay. Modern audiences are tremendously savvy. Don’t underestimate the amount of strangeness they can roll with.

• They encourage community usage. Obviously, you don’t want your mascot to become corrupted or appropriated. But we’re in a many-to-many communications environment now, not a one-to-many environment. If your mascot isn’t able to be a part of intra-community discussion and expression, it’s being left out of the most important place your brand should be.

• Ultimately, though, I believe Japanese mascots are successful because they’re well suited to a metamodernist landscape. They’re genuine, and earnest, but not trite or shallow.

“But Japan has a very different cultural landscape! I need a more familiar touchstone!”

Well, in that case… it’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights. It’s time to meet the ultimate metamodernists. It’s time to meet the Muppets.

(When they’re at their best) it’s almost impossible not to like the Muppets. For the Muppets, nothing is sacred — everything can be parodied or deconstructed or gently mocked. Few forms of entertainment are outside of their purview, and they regularly and deliberately break traditional structures of storytelling, revelling in chaos.

But they’re also profoundly soulful, and genuine. The Muppets value community bonds and resilient optimism, even as they constantly frustrate each other and consistently fail.

I think this quote perfectly and succinctly captures why the Muppets are perfect metamodernists:

“Henson was subversively earnest, and earnestly subversive.”
— Aimee Knight

That’s it. That’s the critical, powerful balance. The tension between this subversiveness and earnestness serves to prove that the earnestness is genuine and resilient, and that negativity and cynicism are cheap and easy.

As we endeavour to define a generation of metamodernist mascots, if we ever start to lose our way, we need only refer back to the example set by the Muppets.

So where are all the mascots? They’re waiting on you

Why did I hear about Mr. Peanut dying? Because they made the brand a person, and it’s so easy to make people care about people.

I think that’s what’s so frustrating about the mascot drought we find ourselves in: I understand that the reputation of mascots got burned in the ’90s, and it takes a lot of bravery to lead the charge to bring them back. But. The bar you need to clear to find success is so low. People can’t help but care about people.

Mr. Peanut isn’t a good mascot. He’s just a mascot full stop, in a world full of people yearning to care about things.

You can have that success, too. If you’re brave.

Call me*.

(*I’m deadly serious. Email me at mat@forthepeople.agency. Or go to forthepeople.agency to see some of our internationally acclaimed branding work. We’re extremely good at brands. Ask us to do mascots. Please.)