Let’s hear it for retailers with mascots. In some cases the mascots are one of the first things that pop into your head.

Let’s hear it for retailers with mascots. In some cases the mascots are one of the first things that pop into your head.

Done correctly, a mascot can become a powerful visual representation of a retailer’s brand image and even its values.

Mascots can range from the adorable (Toys R Us’ Geoffrey the giraffe) to the practical (Nipper the dog at HMV) and the downright creepy (Ronald McDonald or The King at Burger King).

Some are incarnations of the retailer’s logo, such as Best Buy’s ‘Taggie’ or Target’s dog Bullseye, while the origins of others are baffling – Migros, the market leader in Turkey, has adopted a bright green kangaroo for some reason.

My all-time global favourite was Max, the 30,000-year-old woolly mammoth which belonged to Free Record Shop, and whose five-metre long skeleton hung from the ceiling of its flagship in Amsterdam.

In recent years many mascots have been phased out or pushed to the side. Even high-profile examples, such as Nipper, have been removed from store fronts in favour of sharper logos.

Mascots in general though are still very much alive and well – it’s just that you’re more likely to see them parading around a football stadium than cutting the tape at a store opening.

Maybe mascots were simply considered too naff or judged not to fit in with today’s celebrity-led culture.

Now, retailers look to ‘brand ambassadors’. The Gap’s Old Navy clothing business recently unveiled a marketing campaign featuring 1990s boy band the Backstreet Boys in an attempt to appeal to 30-year-old women.

In the UK, a host of retailers are looking for brand ambassadors of their own. Holland & Barrett has TV celebrity Gethin Jones. Other arrangements don’t seem to make as much sense – such as glamorous mathematician Carol Vorderman becoming the face of Farmfoods a few years ago.

Iceland probably does it better than anyone; think of Kerry Katona and you are likely to link her still with those advertisements for frozen party food.

And Max? Sadly even he was sold at auction a few years ago to raise funds for the retailer.

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