1. Instantly rings a bell.
2. Inspires Trust.
How?
3. Drives Engagement
How?
Getting noticed and drawing customers’ attention could be quite a challenge nowadays. While struggling in a highly competitive business environment, developing a great brand cartoon character design could be just the right factor that will stack the odds in your favor.
But what does it take for a vector mascot to win customers over to your side? Here are the 3 vital qualities that will make your graphic brand character your attention-drawing secret weapon.
1. Instantly rings a bell.
Making your brand cartoon character design unique and recognizable is a top priority. Anywhere, anytime, when your audience stumbles upon your cartoon representative, they should be able to associate it with your brand.
Why?
Being as hard as it already is to get noticed in the crowd, you need to focus on building a strong brand presence that will differentiate you from your competitors. Since your potential customers are being bombarded by ads, offers, and products on daily basis, usually they don’t have the time, nor the desire to investigate them all, familiarize themselves, compare and then, make a decision.
This is where your cartoon character comes into action. Your potential customer sees a familiar face among all the unknown brands and a thought pops into their head: “Oh yes, I know this fella!” At this point, their decision seems much easier, logical, and even intuitive.
How?
Nailing your vector cartoon character’s unique appearance is a thoughtful and time-consuming process but it’s totally worth it. Going for a human character, an animal or a fictional being conveys disparate messages, so the first thing to consider would be what kind of character would represent your brand the best.
Next step: carving your cartoon spokesman’s graphic look. Don’t be afraid to experiment with shapes and proportions or exaggerate certain physical features. This is how a brand cartoon character’s design turns out memorable in the end. Adding an accessory like a T-shirt, a scarf, a belt, etc. with your logo or in an eye-grabbing color could also be the most prominent accent that will make your brand representative instantly recognizable by your audience.
2. Inspires Trust.
Your brand could never be successful unless your customers trust you. After building your cartoon character’s familiarity, the second vital task for your brand spokesman would be to build trust and make your audience feel safe and understood.
Why?
Even the slightest doubt or suspicion could turn the tide against you. Using a mascot is a powerful tool to evoke strong positive emotions in your customers. Cartoons feel much friendlier, more likable, and more trustworthy in comparison to a real human face.
This phenomenon is closely tied with nostalgia for childhood. Even without realizing it, your audience could easily associate your brand cartoon character with the adventurous and enchanting world of their favorite childhood cartoon, the strong hero who saved the day, all the happy endings, and all the positive emotions of the past: lightness, easiness, and safety.
How?
Behind every successful cartoon character design stands a thoughtful concept. In order to gain your audience’s trust, your mascot needs to provoke just the right emotions. It needs to be plausible.
The first step to achieving plausibility and building trust is to design your brand cartoon representative in correspondence to your product. For example, round and chubby shapes are associated with kindness, masculine characters are accepted as powerful and strong, big eyes convey honesty and cuteness, and so on. Then, make your character’s behavior reflect your audience’s behavior. Make your vector cartoon guy have the same problems, act the same way, bump into the same obstacles, and voila! You’ve gained your customers’ trust and you’ve got their attention.
3. Drives Engagement
A cartoon spokesman has the power to almost instantly build an emotional relationship. The emotion, on the other hand, provokes action and fosters lasting brand engagement. Achieving this desirable goal is not as easy as pie but a great brand cartoon character design could turn out to be your most valuable asset in this mission.
Why?
It’s so much easier to fall for a cartoon character compared to a real human face, not to mention a faceless company at all. Adding the fact that we as human beings are quite often driven by emotions rather than by rational thinking, the purpose of a cartoon character representing your brand is to connect to your audience on a subconscious level and establish an enduring brand-customer relationship.
How?
The whole concept of your mascot should serve the purpose of engaging your target audience:
- Starting from your cartoon character’s design style which should correspond to the taste of your customers.
- Going through your drawn spokesman’s personality should emphasize your brand’s strengths and unique qualities.
- Finishing with the variety of poses and situations your fella is illustrated in which should reflect your audience’s behavior, depict their problems, and offer them a solution.
Now, you’ve got it all to be successful. Go kill ‘em with a mascot!
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