Why We Have a Mascot

When people think of mascots, they often don’t think of a business, but rather their favorite sports team. However, there are a handful of companies that have a mascot, many of which have become beloved icons. Similar to a logo or slogan, a mascot can become part of the core identity of a company. They help humanize a business by increasing its appeal and relatability to consumers. For example, think of Mr. Peanut for Planter’s Peanuts, the gecko for Geico insurance, or Colonel Sanders for KFC, to name a few!

We decided to tear out a page of this handbook for Mondo by creating a mascot that both our clients and staff could connect with. We wanted to create a mascot that would give Mondo an approachable “face” so to speak. As a result, our beloved Ozzie was born!

The Creation of Ozzie

We knew we wanted a mascot that would portray a fun, playful spirit while accurately representing each of our services. After conducting some internal research, we realized that all of our services could be broken down into eight different categories, coming together to form our full hybridized digital/physical marketing experience. These services include graphic design, web design and hosting, content creation, social media, advertising, printing, signage, and information technology.

Knowing we needed to encompass eight diverse services with our mascot led to the realization that the balance of playful, creative, and professional was not going to be a simple decision. In fact, most marketing companies don’t even have a mascot; however, we decided we wanted more for Mondo.

The Brainstorming

So, how do you combine these eight different aspects of marketing into one mascot? We considered several different ideas, including a few different animal mascot options. However, nothing seemed to quite fit.

Then the aha moment came! We have eight service categories and an octopus has eight arms or tentacles. Octopuses are also intelligent, creative, out-of-the-box thinkers. It was the perfect fit! After all, not only do we have eight services, but we pride ourselves on offering customizable, creative marketing services executed by out-of-the-box thinkers.

However, the similarity didn’t just stop at an octopus’s creativity and number of tentacles. Rather the color-changing abilities of our chosen mascot also worked well with our various CMYK-colored services that help further build our brand’s identity. Our decision to use CMYK colors points back to Mondo’s long history in physical marketing, beginning over 30 years ago. Our sister company, American Paintbrush, is where all of our fabricated signs are produced, and where Mondo does all of its small and wide format printing. CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) coloring is the standard in the print industry, hence our decision to use this color palette. Our marketing services also work in a certain order, which is why we ordered our services beginning with cyan and ending with black.

Octopuses can not only change color but also eject ink as a defensive mechanism, which was also an ideal fit for us since we work with ink in our printing services. Although we do try to avoid using our ink as a defense mechanism (grin).

Now that we had found the ideal mascot all that was left was to decide on a name, and after a late night of polling and brainstorming, we landed on the name Ozzie!

The Design

We now knew what our mascot would be, what we would call him, and the reason why he was a good fit for our company. However, we still needed a design. We didn’t just want something generic. It needed to be a mascot that would accurately represent all aspects of our services. The concept of our marketing is simply: all your marketing in one place. Yet, this presented us with a complex company to represent, due to the diversity of our offerings. Remember also that we wanted both a playful and professional Ozzie. Additionally, “Mondo” stands for something strikingly beautiful, so we were looking for an eye-catching mascot. Balancing all of these facets in our design was both difficult, yet necessary if we were going to design the perfect Ozzie the Octopus.

As a result of this challenge, we went through several versions of Ozzie before finding the right one. After a good deal of collaboration and designing, Ozzie was born! He is red in color to identify him with Mondo’s colors, and was created to look both helpful, fun, and approachable, just like Mondo! As a finishing touch, we gave him glasses to give him an intelligent, professional feel. Ozzie is all of the things Mondo represents bundled into one tiny octopus package.

The Purpose of Ozzie

Now you might be thinking, he’s cute and all but is a mascot really necessary for a marketing company? After all, companies are not required to have a mascot, and certainly, most marketing companies don’t have one. Well, you’d be correct. However, we wanted to find new ways to advertise ourselves and connect with our market. Since Mondo prioritizes individual relationships over sales, it was vital for us to find new ways to relate in a society that is constantly becoming more digitized and impersonal. In our mascot Ozzie we found the perfect way to make this personal connection.

Not only does Ozzie help humanize Mondo, but he also provides us with a consistent brand identity. Utilizing the style of Ozzie, we created a cohesive theme while individually representing each of our services. We used Ozzie’s underwater environment to further inspire the design for our services, allowing Ozzie to further shine throughout our brand’s identity. This fact is illustrated well on our website, with Ozzie even being portrayed as a vital member of our support team! All while giving clients and visitors a fun, inventive way to connect to a marketing company.

The Benefit of Mascots

You may not technically need a mascot for your business; however, after learning about how Ozzie has benefited our business, you might just want one!

You’ll, of course, have to ultimately evaluate whether a mascot could be beneficial for your business. However, depending on your business model, a mascot may be a great way to make your business more exciting and relatable and give your customers an identity to connect with. As an added benefit, a mascot can also give you a stronger overall brand identity, beyond just a logo or slogan.

In addition to providing your business with personability and a stronger brand identity, having a mascot can provide you with new ways to market your business, as you now have a new persona and look to help further your marketing efforts into new avenues. This could even include ordering swag goods, such as stickers,  koozies, or apparel with your mascot printed on them!

Now, you may be worried about the time it takes to implement a mascot. While it’s true that the creation of our particular mascot did take a good deal of planning in order to find the perfect fit, it doesn’t always need to be this extensive. Maybe your auto repair garage needs something as straightforward as an animated car, or your security company needs an animated padlock. Take a few moments to evaluate your business and the persona you want to portray. Then, start brainstorming and see what you can come up with!

But never fear, you don’t need to go through this process alone. If you decide to create a mascot, we would love to help! With all of our services, we can both provide you with a mascot that will perfectly represent your company and help improve your brand’s identity and consistency.

We’d also love to hear your opinion on Ozzie! Let us know what you think by filling out this form!

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