Disney has licensed its famous cast of cartoon characters to produce distributor Imagination Farms LLCs which has deals with 15 large growers to market the Disney Garden nationwide. Growers hope to get kids excited about fruits and vegetables. So far, the kids are eating it up. The 30 items will soon grow to 100.
A report by the Institute of Medicine entitled Food Marketing to Children & Youth: Threat or Opportunity, showed the success of using characters & games to market to children. The report recommended using mascots and superheroes to market nutritious foods, just as candy and cereal makers had done to sell their sweet products.
The use of animated characters has also been successful in marketing to adults. Geico’s gecko comes immediately to mind. We wonder, could the gecko sell real estate? Does anyone know of any real estate brokers or agents using animation for branding & marketing of their professional services or in their listings?
Sources: Associated Press (via Yahoo Finance); Science News online: How Advertising is Becoming Child’s Play.
Related posts:
Marketing with Talking Avatars
Female Bot Sells Condos On Miami Beach’s Millionaire Row
The broker in Miami using an animated avatar cast - I’m sure I read that here.
There’s a long history of animated characters for non-kid markets:
The Exxon (ne Esso) Tiger - originally voiced by Bobby Morse
MTV logo (in early days, very animated and we - the makers - thought of it as a character)
Peanuts characters for MetLife
Reddi Kiilowatt for the electric industry
Punchie (Hawaiian Punch) (now spelled Punchy - have they no shame?)
Many more I’m sure….
The problem for Brokers is that it takes lots of time, talent and money invested for an animated character to pay back, and most brokers don’t have the patience.
Great examples fatbear. Nice to see you back in the comment sections, we missed you.
Animals have always been popular, as you point out with Esso. Remember Flying A’s winged horse? Flying A also ran a scratch off money game to attract customers.