Thinking about mascots

Normally, the only reason to go to Otacute is to get those rare touhou figma which can’t be found in your usual online shops and are sold at cut-throat prices in Singapore.  Otherwise, their stocks of the usual products are more expensive than say, Amiami or Hobbysearch. However, recently, Otacute had a mascot competition. Design a mascot for them and win either some paypal cash or some vouchers that can be used to buy stuffs at Otacute. That got my interest.

Mascots are good publicity tools. They help enhance the branding and they provide an immediate, approachable face for the brand. They represent what they are suppose to represent and every detail should tell a story of their own. Everyone loves and hates them. Case study: Merly and Lyo. You either love them or hate them. For CDS, we have decided to love them but seems like there are plenty of hates out there. Of course, these ‘hate’ might simply be an extension of the overall disdain for the YOG out there. This just comes to show that cute mascots might just help you get a wee bit more love but they ain’t everything.

Everyone seems to be getting some mascot. Amiami and Hobbysearch already had mascots of cute girls of their own. Closer to home, Sgcafe has a mascot which was created through a contest. Daiyaku created one for themselves recently and also did one for EOY. The NUS CAS has Ani-tan whom WaHa actually drew on a whim and I wrote the profile for. We don’t have one yet. Maybe in the future but probably not. I like to keep the CDS image flexible for now and I’m not inclined to be represented by a cute girl yet.

Now that Otacute’s contest deadline is over and WaHa had finally submitted his entry, I was poring over the entries and thus the idea for this article was born. What makes a good mascot, a good mascot? Let me attempt to give my mostly impartial opinion and perhaps, start some drama that would push web traffic up. A word of disclaimer first: I obviously have my bias in terms of who should win the contest. This is one of the many side-quests that have been delaying the CCS manga and by golly, if it is going to have an effect on our work, it better be worth it. However, in my defence, his entry is one of the better ones I’ve seen. For good reasons too.

With luck, in the future, I’ll need to add (c) Otacute

So how did WaHa (or Summanus)’s entry stand out among the crowd? Let’s go through some criteria first.

A good mascot represents something. They must be instantly recognizable. They should be distinct and unique. When I showed the contest entries to Haimerejzero, his immediate comment was that “plenty of Miku clones’. To those Miku clones, they failed in being unique and recognizable. They are simply standardized designs with more similarities than unique takes on the subject. They won’t be able to stand out. While since the site is dominated by lime green, having lime green as the main feature of the mascot might not work towards the company’s interest either. What if the site decides one day that perhaps people are more receptive to buying things if the background carries a sky blue theme?

Another opinion I had of the entries is how vanilla many of them are. Many of them are of lovely quality and wonderfully drawn. However, they are still vanilla plain boring. Here is when those with a distinct design really stands out. For some reason, I really like those entries that are non-human in design, especially the one based on a tortoise.  While they are not ‘moe’ in nature, they stand out really well from the laundry list of green-haired beauties. It is definitely good in allowing Otacute to stand out from the other merchandise retail sites that have pretty, moe girls as their mascots.

A mascot should also have meaning since the mascot carries with its design, a message which the company or organization or brand wants to relay to everyone else. In Otacute’s case, the mascot must deliver more than just the promise of affordable and avaliable Touhou figmas. They, in their design, are what they represent and the message they deliver. Like how Ronald Macdonald represents the cheer that the big M is supposed to bring. Or that Colonel Sanders represents how KFC chickens are made in that old, traditional recipe that taste so wonderfully good. In this aspect, I’ll have to rely on my own intepretation of the mascot designs to see if there is anything to inteprete and what message the mascot is delivering. For the vanilla entries, I am hardpressed to inteprete anything. Perhaps, I’m just pretty bad at that. A school girl does not a good retail website mascot make.

So I have set up three main criteria for mascots. Distinct, interesting and meaningful. WaHa/Summanus’s DFC entry is definitely distinct and interesting. Being a well-drawn entry helps a lot in those aspects. As for meaning, that is slightly more suspect. Mako (the name of WaHa’s mascot) gives me an impression of an MMORPG Merchant class which helps in the meaning to Otacute as a retailer but that’s basically just that, to be truthful. The heavy, overflowing backpack seem to imply that Mako carries plenty of stocks that consumers might want to get. What kind of stocks are we talking about? It is not clear. Maybe she’s a bookstore owner, given the scrolls poking out of her bag. Would Kinokuniya be interested in having Mako as their mascot instead?

Mako is aestectically pleasing but we will need more time to bring more meaning into her design such that she works as an Otacute mascot. Knowing WaHa/Summanus, this entry is done on quite a last minute basis and probably completed within a day. Not bad for a mascot competition with only a day to do but not exactly good for a mascot competition that have been running for a while. With a bit more time to brainstorm, Mako might have been a clear winner.  Right now, she would have to jostle with other outstanding entries for a chance at winning. That gigantic backpack might help shoved some contestants off the pedestal though.

Now, despite my criticism, I still have my clear winner of choice in mind. As I said, I’m biased. One of the aims of the post is to garner support for him anyway. Apparently, while the winning entry will be decided within Otacute, the comments will have an impact on how well received the potential mascot is by the consumers. Popularity contest! Yay! So any artist with a good amount of friends can influence the result of the contest such that the mediocre can win. How lovely. How glad I am that Extravaganza has some of the most notoriously stingy judges when it comes down to handing out prizes. Well, two can play the game. So hurry up and go put your most gushing comments on the mascot page for the mascot you like best, the most deserving mascot entry. If not Mako, there are other excellent entries over there besides WaHa/Summanus’ Mako. Be sure to give your vote of confidence to them. And if you think WaHa/Summanus’ Mako is za best, then what are you waiting for?! Click on the mascot images to jump straight to the mascot page.

Resourceful Merchant signing out with a salute

To be updated on 14 19 Oct 2010 when the results are announced. You got slightly more than a week to start spammning their pages to show your support! May the most deserving entry win.

Update: The announcement of results have been delayed to 19 Oct. Otacute have reassured everyone that the final decision still lies with them though they take the comments into consideration. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go there and support your favorite entries!