Larry the Cable Guy is more culturally relevant than Larry the Quaker guy. And that's a problem for Quaker Oats.

Now, the PepsiCo unit has given its old-fashioned mascot, internally nicknamed "Larry," a graphic makeover. Larry hasn't undergone as much transformation as other human mascots over the years — the increasingly hip Betty Crocker comes to mind — so the 130-year-old Quaker Oats figured it was time. Turns out, eating oatmeal is good for the middle-aged figure.Continue reading...

When M&M’s Ms. Brown appeared on TV screen during the Super Bowl, she represented a whole new resurgence for brand mascots. They may seem retro, but branded characters and icons are making a comeback because, as the Wall Street Journal reporter Suzanne Vranica points out above, who wants to talk to a logo?

While mascots took off in the 1950s, the use of icons had fallen out of favor in recent years ... but that was before Twitter and Facebook. Mr. Clean, for instance, has 277,000 fans via his Facebook page. The latest example: a new ad campaign by StubHub, which is using a talking tree as its mascot.Continue reading...

FDR was president, the Hindenburg crashed, the Golden Gate Bridge opened, and Spam was born. In 1937, the pork-centric meat dish sold in the trademark can hit store shelves.

So to celebrate the 75th anniversary of its birth, Hormel Foods, the owner of the Spam brand, are “launching a loveable character to rescue the world from routine meals,” according to the company's press release.

The 2½-inch mascot is a cartoon knight named (what else?) Sir Can-A-Lot and he’ll appear in Spam marketing across the board. In one new commercial, he pops out from an egg carton to remind the cook to include Spam in her recipe.Continue reading...

While the world’s best sprinters, hurdlers, and hammer throwers are fine-tuning themselves for this summer’s Olympic Games in London, there is a small army of big fluffy beasts that are doing the same.

But it’s for a totally different 100-meter race than the one that will find the world’s speediest man and woman wearing gold medals. This one is for charity mascots.Continue reading...

English football isn’t always known for its family friendliness but the West Ham United Football Club (known as the Hammers) in East London took a step in that direction Saturday by adding another mascot to sports pantheon of cute and fuzzy mascots.

The Hammers' new mascot, Hammerhead (at right), isn’t a shark but, yes, it is a hammer. A dancing, showboating hammer. Hammerhead had something to strut about Saturday as his team topped Barnsley F.C. Tykes 1-0. (And it’s not really nice to pick on tykes, is it?)

The team’s fans, though, weren’t sure what to make of Hammerhead, according to Metro.co.uk. On one fan forum, the site notes, one commenter stated, “Rarely have I been so embarrassed at Upton Park” while another wrote, “I personally thought it was much more entertaining than the game.”Continue reading...

The Philadelphia 76ers last visited the NBA Finals in 2000 and won the whole thing in 1983, but there hasn’t been a lot of Brotherly Love for the Sixers in recent years as the team has either not made the playoffs at all or lost in the first round since 2003.

But now the team has new ownership, a new hope as the season is getting set to begin on Dec. 25, and a new mascot that will debut early in the year. That last one, actually, hasn’t been decided on just yet — so the team is asking fans to help determine the next face of the franchise will be, according to CSNPhilly. After all, whether it is Big Ben, B. Franklin Dogg, or Phil E. Moose, it will likely be around long after everybody on the current roster is gone.

The last mascot the Sixers had, a rabbit named Hip Hop, spent most of its time strutting around and doing crazy dunks off of trampolines. Last month, he was bounced out after fans told the new ownership that he had to go. So now the team is trying to figure out whether it wants a mascot in the form of Benjamin Franklin, a dog, or, oddly, a moose.Continue reading...

Air New Zealand isn’t above doing something a little scandalous to bring in customers and publicity. Two years ago, it painted uniforms onto the skin of supposed members of a ANZ flight crew for an ad campaign, raising more than a few eyebrows.

Then a year ago, the airline introduced a brand mascot: a raunchy puppet named Rico, who starred in an online-only ad campaign in which he used “sexual innuendo and chats with B-grade celebrities,” such as David Hasselhoff, Richard Simmons, Snoop Dogg and Lindsay Lohan, to help sell the airline, according to New Zealand’s Stuff.

Rico found some success, collecting 4.5 million YouTube viewers and more than 48,000 Facebook fans along the way. ANZ is likely the only major airline that had a series of online ads starring a puppet that all opened with the text, “The following video contains language and themes of a sensitive nature. Viewer discretion is advised.”Continue reading...

Yes, she's had a few cosmetic makeovers through the decades, to make sure she doesn't look school-marmish or like June Cleaver on the cake-mix boxes. But now that she's just turned 90 years old, Betty Crocker is undergoing one of the biggest changes ever: She's going digital. And that may be the best way for General Mills' baking-brand spokeswoman (a persona created in 1921 to answer home bakers' questions) to make it comfortably into the next century.

Betty's birthday celebration has been at the center of a new campaign by the brand that has included new cupcake recipes (Red Velvet Triple Stack and Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Caramel varieties sound particularly enticing), a promotional trip to the birthday "bash" at Betty Crocker Kitchens in Minneapolis attended by a 24-year-old Arizonan who won a contest, and a new version of the iconic Betty Crocker "Big Red" cookbook. Betty was already on Twitter and Facebook, but now she's got a new online destination that includes 1,500 recipes, 1,100 all-new photographs, an expanded store, and access to 85 videos and 400 additional recipes.Continue reading...