Exploring Character vs. Human Face as the Digital Representative of a brand.
Much has been talked about in the social media space when it comes to brand representation by a social media or community manager. In fact as social media starts to grow I am seeing people from PR, marketing, Human Resources and even college interns handling responsibilities of the outward facing digital voice. I am not going to get deep into the choices about who should become the face of a brand or why, rather I will offer some alternatives to a single person or department having that role. Instead of an individual or group lets explore the use of a character.
For years now we have seen brands represented by characters. Companies like Geiko have a Gecko and McDonalds has well, Ronald McDonald with his cast of friends like the Hamburgler representing the different products. In the social media realm we are more likely to see skilled communicators such as Scott Monty with Ford and Jeffrey Hayzlett with Kodak becoming the primary digital speakers of the brand. I am actually all for this and I truly believe that real human connections are more powerful than any others but for the brands weary of a specific face I will offer an alternative.
Character Branding
If you look at the Treewise website below you will see that they are an ecological landscape company. By flipping through the pages of this site you get the distinct message that these folks are extremely passionate about their craft and they are very good at what they do. In my opinion this company is in the perfect position to begin blogging and sharing their work with the online community through sites like Twitter and Facebook. This might mean they name an individual within the organization to represent the brand in the digital space. This person would do everything from write blog posts on relevant ecological topics to sharing photos of before and after work on Facebook. However, The problem that arises for many brands is to the “who” and also to the “how long”. People move on from jobs and start lives elsewhere. Many brands are weary of naming a specific individual or department as the sole communicator in the digital space.
Now Look closer at the navigation of this website. In my opinion Treewise is in a perfect position to leverage their Soil Geek trademark! This would actually solve both the problem of the “who” and the “how long”. By utilizing the character of the Soil Geek any of the Treewise employees could write an article under that character name. People of different passions and knowledge could easily share their expertise. Meanwhile the “Soil Geek” trademark would become synonymous with the Treewise brand and will live on forever allowing the character to grow with the brand never losing it’s connection with the community so long as it is maintained.
In my opinion the above section of the Treewise website should house a blog showcasing the recent work and knowledge of the brand. What do you think? Do you know of a brand that could make use of a character rather than a human face? Share it with me and maybe I’ll break it down in a future post. Do you think that as much trust can be built with a character of a brand? I’d love to further explore this with you.
I have no particular affiliation with Treewise at this time.
Keith Burtis is a social media and digital marketing professional. If you or your company are looking to REV THE ENGINE on your digital efforts contact Keith today! Specialties include: Blog design/Integration, Custom Facebook Pages, Social, Digital and Interactive Content strategies.
Comments
Whether a brand uses a real human face, e.g. Scott Monty of Ford, or a character, the goal is (or should be) to humanize the brand so it can build or strengthen relationships with customers or the public in general. My favorite example of this from the Pacific Northwest is Tillamook Cheese ( http://www.facebook.com/TillamookCheese ).
On the other hand, the Morton Salt girl is already a trusted name and character, but nothing has been done with it. What would you do? 
I’m not affiliated with Tillamook Cheese or Morton Salt at this time, other than as a consumer.
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At a Social Media for starters event I helped organise recently, I spoke to a hotel owner who was interested in starting a blog. She mentioned the fact that everyone who visits her hotel always remembers her dog – the dog is pretty much part of the hotel experience. She then brought up the idea of starting a blog with her dog as the author – I loved it!
Obviously, a character needs to be memorable and likeable. When speaking to a character I think most users of a brand understand that they can be speaking to any member of staff and don’t really look to build a relationship – it can be seen as fun.
For large brands though a character used as part of an advertising campaign can leave a long lasting perception. I think the line between likeable and annoying can be pretty fine at times and taking the decision to use a character to represent as brand can be a pretty big risk. These risks have paid of though, as can be seen it some of the examples already mentioned.
I generally quite like brands using characters but like most branding decisions that go against the grain, a lot of thought needs to go into the final call. When credability, risk, reputation and gain is all weighed up sometimes it may just come down to a gut feel because this sort of thing may be more of an art that a science!
Thanks for bringing up this interesting debate!
Just realised that I stuffed up my twitter ID!
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I waged some fierce blogocombat years ago against Fictional Character blogging. Original target was a talking moose for an ice cream manufacturer. It was a terrible campaign. Got a lot of grief from other bloggers. There was also a fake character who “traveled” around the world collecting “recipes” that did not exist.
Ronald McDonald sort of works, as does Micky Mouse, but you have to be careful with this sort of thing.
I agree with comments above. Is a “character” authentic? Personal? Transparent? Accountable? Human? Warm? Genuine?
The best representative of a brand is the CEO or some passionate employee with great knowledge of both product line and real customer needs and goals.
I agree with you that there is a fine line here and that it can very easily be done very wrong. However, I also think that there is possible opportunity here for companies that don’t want to take the risk of a specific individual. I also believe that it offers some creative opportunitis to be creative and do it right. Thanks for the comment.
Robert, This sounds like it could be pretty cool. I would think that a message from “the dog” might have some pretty creative possibilities. I also think that if done wrong, it could go very wrong. Would be so cool to learn more about this hotel. I have worked with three hotels in the past six months. They have some amazing content creation opportunities!
David, the point here is that the character is not a single individual but rather the collective intellect of the brand. Rather than having the “singular face” you have full on brand representation. This does not in my opinion take out the human aspect. In fact the character may actually be managed by only one person. That person may engage on twitter and facebook, he or she will facilitate posting to the blog,and other areas but the overarching message will be that of the brand.
So in the case of Scribnia you might actually have individual personal accounts of David at Scribnia and so forth, but the logo or character account would be the overarching message from the team. As a social media manager I believe it is your responsibility to coax content out of everyone involved in the future of your project. Instead of you wondering “what to do” with the actual Scribnia twitter account you might want to share insights from the brand and share the work of others?
All stream of consciousness here. Thanks for the comment.
Veronica, We talk all the time about humanizing the brand. Honestly i think it goes even further into creativity, education and entertaining. I’m not sure about the Morton Salt Girl. Remember that it must tie back to company objectives. Maybe she would share recipes? Maybe she would comment on the blogs of others that are using salt and creating a cool blogger outreach program. That’s the cool part about social media. The possibilities are endless.
Can you think of some examples where a business would not want to have a real, specific individual aligned with their official statements in a blog? Not bashing you, just curious as to what that situation might be? There may be legit examples, but I can't think of any. Especially now, customers want transparency, accountable individuals to contact or interact with, like @comcastcares on Twitter.
Spot-on article as usual Kieth. Being a small business owner, I could not help but look at this from that viewpoint. In that regard, I think a human face is most appropriate, especially when the business is only a few employees, or 1, as in my case. I truly am the face of my company and I want potential and current customers to recognize me as that and associate the quality of my work with that one face. Sure, I have a logo and other typical branding items in place, but they are just that, branding items. After all, it is hard for individuals to get to emotionally attached or involved with a logo.
On the otherhand, as I read this one singular concept stuck out over and over. For larger companies, where it would be tough to consistently keep the same actual face available, why not choose something more avatarish and let the voice of the avatar be the voice of the company, regardless of which employee currently has that role.
Customers and clients, hell all people for that matter, are most comfortable with images and people they know. If your company is truly of the size and scope wherein it would be a challenge to keep the same employee as the ‘face’, I think there is but one solution outside the scope of inanimate logos.
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People don’t want to interact with avatars of fake personalities. They want to interact with real people. CEO is best.
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Steve, I would say that you are right in some situations. However, I can think of many reasons that you would not want to have a CEO as your outbound public face. What I am trying to get across in this article is that we need to be needs and solutions oriented rather than just saying, this is the way it’s supposed to be. For company A the CEO may be a great voice for the company and for company B it might be someone in sales, for company C however they may want more of a collective voice like the one I describe above. To say that the CEO should be the person utilizing the digital tools in my mind is wrong. You must always keep concerns, circumstances, goals, time, value and education in mind.
Furthermore, after identifying the “why” they’ll use the tools is to answer the “what” they’ll use them for. In the case of Comcast and Dell they use it for customer service (not a CEO). Other companies may use it as a venue for entertainment to increase visibility of a brand. Remember, I am not talking about twitter here. Twitter is just one tool in the kit. Some other companies may have different people involved in different channels based on their skills. Would you do a video podcast if you had a personality like Gary Vaynerchuck as an employee? I know I would. In my opinion companies should be seeking these opportunities within their organizations. Maybe you have a tech writer that s looking to unleash their creative writing passion. That might be an opportunity to create a creatively written blog that entertains while it informs. In my opinion you should not limit your thinking, but rather explore what can be done.
keithburtis´s last blog ..Exploring Character vs. Human Face as the Digital Representative of a brand.
Absolutely agree with you Keith.
In smaller companies especially, the CEO would be the ideal person to blog and Twitter because he or she is out there contacting the customers to some degree, often being the primary representative of the company.
My client Naturally Yours Grocery, a local organic health food store, uses a passionate employee to do their blogging, not the owner or manager.
The manager contacted me to design a blog for the store, but he delegated the blogging to a guy named Matt who is a sales person with tremendous zeal and knowledge. Matt loves to blog and impart information to people. It’s working out splendidly.
Though the manager, Roger, is in the TV commercials, he’s not really the primary spokesperson for the store, and I can’t even recall the name of the owner. LOL
So there’s no “this person must be the social media person” rule, but it’s good to have a human face and voice representing a company, rather than just a logo and legacy. That’s one of the most vital aspects of branding.
I wrote advertising for Garden Way, manufacturer of Troy-Bilt tillers and other gardening machines and lawn mowers. They used Dean Leith, the CEO, in all their promotions. He was a loved and trusted authority who was passionate and sincere about gardening. They had the Cadillac of tillers, that was their legacy and reality, but that was not enough for them.
Troy-bilt direct mail was always from Dean Leith, with his face everywhere, and personal letters signed by Leith, plus every promo package contained valuable charts, tips booklets, and other things, which made people look forward to the mailings, even if they already owned a competitive tiller and had no plans to buy a Troy-Bilt.
Cold, impersonal, dehumanized companies do not have the connection with the public that they need and a more personal, approachable competitor has a huge advantage.
Vaspers aka Steven E Streight´s last blog ..3 Sins Christian Pastors Never Preach Against
Actually never even thought about the concept of a character. It’s kind of a middle ground between a logo and a human face.
One issue: Is the character really transparent and human? The person maintaining the account has to alter their personality to the personality of the character. A character is essentially, a logo with a personality.
I really like it though. I think if done right, it can be great in terms of branding. If we’re committed to creating an honest human interaction on twitter though, the human face seems like the only way to do this.
Interested to hear others’ thoughts…
note: I know, we only have a logo up on our account. Working on it. Maybe we’ll try a funny pencil…with an accent. ^_^
David
Community Manager, Scribnia.com
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