Quick! Blog about it! Corporate Mascot in Peril!

When I lived in Pittsburgh (YAY STEELERS!!!!! Wooooo!) I became very acquainted with a smiley face. This was the mascot that came about as a result of the trademarked cookie of a regional chain called “Eat ‘n Park.” When I moved west I bid fairwell to the happy, smiling representation of family food. Or did I?

On the west coast there is another smiling avatar. His name is Jack. He appears as a human being with a giant snowman-like head, and a little conical hat. His expression changes by how his mouth is drawn. Jack is the fictitious CEO of the western burger chain, “Jack in the Box.”

So, to join east coast and west coast, let’s focus on a Superbowl commercial that occurred. Jack in the Box ran a regional commercial promoting ‘Anything on the menu, any time.’ I suppose this is like getting an EggMcMuffin after 11 am. The commercial started with mascot Jack talking about this, walking out into traffic and then getting hit by a bus. (link to the video)

This commercial is a member of an increasing field of “Teaser commercials.” Commercials that start a story and then drive you to a web site to hear the rest of the story. Usually, very anticlimactic; or in the case of companies like GoDaddy (Official domain registrar of Tosocnet) “Innappropriate for Television.” Translation.. more tease. But with the push onto the internet there is the ability to create more interactivity.

Jack in the Box (henceforth referred to as JitB, so I don’t have to type as much) walks an interesting line between fiction and reality for its ad campaign. JitB has managed to successfully anthropomorphise its company into a tangible character. (Such as Ronald McDonald, the ever-increasingly scary Burger King, and others) By putting its mascot into complete peril, it has latched onto human interest.

The site HangInThereJack.Com is a running blog on Jack’s current condition. There are several video blog entries with the same tongue-in-cheek humour as the rest of the long running campaign. There’s even a youtube video from a passer by’s cell phone camera from the “accident”. Of course the poor quality video lines up exactly with the secondary camera from the commercial.

The site makes the request that, in lieu of flowers, you think of the fallen mascot by going to the stores and “Enjoying any choice from the menu at any time.” To help soothe the worried hearts of his fans we need to honour his last wishes. And speaking of fans of celebrities… You can follow how Jack is doing on both Facebook and Twitter.

Oh, look: two of our favourite new social networking friends. That’s right. This is a campaign to drive you into the stores, but to do so by hooking you on a personal level to a brand and to an anthropomorphised avatar. This campaign wants to give you more of an emotional connection. Truth is, we love our local heroes, and we love an underdog. Nobody loves a burger chain. You may have a preference and even a choice favourite, but it’s nonetheless a burger chain. Crappy food, not nutritious, convenient, and we all eat it. (Well, unless we’re food snobs.) But a smiling clown head suffering from perhaps a near fatal (Ironically football-like) crushing blow? Well, we eat that stuff up. (I’ll bet anything the guy that pitched the campaign used those exact words.)

So, I added this “celebrity” on Twitter. Jack has only been twittering for a few weeks. By my estimation, let’s call it about the time that it takes to produce a commercial for a an ad campaign. The web site monitoring his status has a place where you can send your get wells. And there were many on the site right after the accident.

This was a well-planned social networking attack. Some of the videos and messages were obviously pre-generated, priming the audience to take the idea viral. JitB creates a social meme. Some will play along with this game. And yes, some will honestly believe this is all real and send actual, heart-felt messages. The company doesn’t care. Because at core… they will all drive business to the restaurant. This business they attract is what will pay for the gamble that is advertising. This is the goal of advertising: to create new business that not only pays the expense of advertising, but also drives up revenue beyond those costs.

There’s been a lot of talk about social networking as a venue for business. Businesses don’t social network. Businesses social engineer. These are two very different verbs and very likely could form two entirely different yet intertwinable topics. This is also not new. Anytime you contemplate that, all you have to do is contemplate the earliest corporate mascots you can think of.

Social engineering through social networking is also not new. On an honest level, it is why I respect Wil Wheaton so much. How he’s used social networking is how he has engineered a new perception of himself. People use their content and their metadata (the stuff about their stuff) to sometimes craft very shrewd images.

This becomes a topic that will end here but I feel will show up more in the future.

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