Is Matthew McConaughey a Distinctive Brand Asset?

The Cogs of Empirical Marketing, Part 4

Alright, alright, alright. Welcome back to the Cogs of Empirical Marketing — a better map to help you diagnose problems, drive strategy, develop tactics and grow your brand. 

Because once you know exactly where you are, you can chart a course for precisely where you want to go. 

So Super Bowl LIX happened, and the ads were very exciting. There were sloths! Clydesdales! Seal as a seal. Nike is doing brand ads again! Flying body hair! So many aliens! A lot of Peyton Manning! So much Matthew McConaughey!

Matthew McConaughey as Ditka! Matthew McConaughey as Lombardi! Matthew McConaughey as an idiot who can’t get out of the rain without AI? 

This week, we’re talking about Distinctive Brand Assets. We’ve talked about them before … and before that. 

So, for those of you just joining us, Distinctive Brand Assets are the codes and cues buyers use to identify your brand instantly. They are your logo, fonts, colors, shapes, packaging, characters, jingles and other devices. They’re the mental shortcut buyers take to sort through a sea of sameness and find you on the shelf. 

To be truly distinctive, Distinctive Brand Assets must be famous and unique. We can measure that so you know which to invest in and which to send to a farm upstate where they can run and play with the other assets.

Many brands did a fantastic job incorporating their DBAs into their Super Bowl spots. 

It’s like Dunkin’ is double dog daring you to misattribute this ad. The DBAs include a lot of orange, a splash of pink, cartoon Boston accents (so, Boston accents) and Ben Affleck. Bill Belichick is not a DBA. Not yet. At least not in Milwaukee.

And while this ad featuring sloths is beautifully done, entertaining and funny as hell, it’s not immediately obvious that this is an ad for Coors Light.

Yes, the brand colors are there a lot of the time, but colors are difficult to own. 

The ads we really want to talk about this week are for Pringles and Instacart.

Pringles did an incredible job with “The Call of the Mustache”. Yes, it is gloriously nonsensical.

Out of the gate, we know it’s an ad for Pringles. And we know the problem: They’re out of Pringles. Oh, no!

Then things get weird. Adam Brody uses the empty tube to summon Pringles from across America.

Mustaches everywhere answer the call. 

Excellent use of celebrity Nick Offerman. Of course, the joke would’ve worked without him. 

Mustaches gather cans of Pringles and fly across the country. 

A murmuration of mustaches in the shape of a mustache is a fantastic visual joke.

But they don’t quite make it. So Adam Brody decides to go to the store himself.

We see the logo. The mustache wiggles a bit. 

And the spot ends with Nick Offerman and James Harden. Nick’s got a new ‘stache. James seems less than happy about it.

Whew! That was quite the journey. Are we witnessing the birth of the mustache as a Distinctive Brand Asset? Maybe, if Pringles keeps using it over and over again. Even for a famous brand, DBAs take time.

Now, let’s talk about Instacart and their “We’re here” ad. If you haven’t seen it (or if you were trying to watch it in a room full of people talking loudly about how the Chiefs were doing a great job getting wrecked by the Eagles’ defense), it’s kind of amazing.

In a single ad, we have the Kool-Aid Man, Chester Cheetah, Mr. Clean, the Energizer Bunny,  the Pillsbury Doughboy (not pictured), the weiner dogs from a 2016 Heinz spot, the Jolly Green Giant, Puppy Monkey Baby (also not pictured) from a 2016 Mountain Dew ad, and the “I’m on a horse” guy from that Old Spice ad. 

That’s a lot of famous characters. 

Except for the weiner dogs and possibly Puppy Monkey Baby, we bet you instantly recognized them and knew which brand they represent. Maybe you felt a slight pang of nostalgia, even a tiny bit of joy. 

Irrational? Sure. Effective? To quote the Kool-Aid Man, “Oh, yeah!”

Emotional associations. Memories. Instant recognition. Brand fame. That’s what characters do. They drive mental availability, customer acquisition, profit and pricing power. Characters/mascots are some of the most effective DBAs out there. 

According to a report from System1 and the IPA, characters are better at:

“New customer gain: Character campaigns: 40.9%; other campaigns: 32%

Market share gain: Character campaigns: 40.9%; other campaigns: 29.7%

Profit gain: character campaigns: 34.1%; other campaigns: 26.2%

Reduced price sensitivity: Character campaign: 6.8%; other campaigns: 5.9%”

And only 12% of brands use them. There’s so much room to play. 

Here’s the catch: Characters and mascots must be really distinctive, and you must commit to the bit. For years.

A giant, anthropomorphic pitcher of red Kool-Aid that bursts through walls and shouts, “Oh, yeah!” is both unique and deeply weird. And that’s great. You will never mistake him for the Duolingo Owl (RIP), the GEICO Gecko, your buddy Steve or anything other than what he is. And he’s been around for 70 years. 

So if you are considering a character or mascot — and we think you should — you gotta go all in for a long, long, long time. 

Oh, and characters and mascots appeal to Gen-Z, Millennials, Gen-X (all 11 of them), and Boomers. Distinctive Brand Assets take time to grow, but they span generations. 

And if you’re looking to measure your DBAs, Mental Availability, and the rest of the Cogs so you can diagnose problems, drive strategy, develop tactics and grow your brand, just give us a call. 

We’ll see you next time!

Sources!

“Brand Characters Boost the Effectiveness of TV Ads” – WARC

“Building Distinctive Brand Assets” – Jenni Romaniuk