Top Brand Mascots on Facebook

In some cases we dress like them, most of us quote them and all of us have our favorites. Yup, we’re talking about brand mascots. Mascots are a vital tool for companies to reach out to its audience and have been showcased on television and print since the early 20th century. With the introduction of Social Media, mascots can now interact with users on various platforms, thereby building relationships with fans and followers.

Without further ado, let’s countdown the top brand mascots on Facebook. The list has been compiled using the number of fans the mascot has on Facebook but keep in mind fellow social media enthusiasts/analysts the fans metric, although important, is not the only metric to judge a brand by. Growth rates, average reply time, content strategy, user engagement etc, play a huge role in a brand’s presence. Fans have been used in the report as an anchor to shortlist the top 10, but by no means are we saying that fan numbers are the most important metric.

To help even out the playing field we have split the list in to two parts: the first contains mascots that have their own Facebook pages which are separate from the Brand pages, and the other list contains mascots which are tied in with their brand pages.

Mascots That Have Their Own Page

#5: Aflac Duck – The cute and cuddly duck with quite the personality has come in at 5th place. The Aflac duck has close to 440,000 fans and saw a growth rate of 2.2% in the period analyzed. The Aflac page has close to 25,000 fans, which shows us the advantage of having a separate page for the mascot. The Aflac YouTube account has close to 3,000 subscribers, 272 uploads and has received around 6.3 million views.

#4: Mayhem (Allstate) – “If you’ve got cut rate insurance, get Allstate and be better protected from Mayhem like me”. Found in the most unfortunate of situations, Mayhem is always lurking around causing more carnage and destruction. The Mayhem mascot has its own page on Facebook and commands close to 1.7 million fans with a growth rate of 2.7%, lower than the sector average of 4.2%. Mayhem also has commendable presence on YouTube with over 11,000 subscribers and 550 uploads.

#3: Flo the Progressive Girl – Flo commands close to 5.3 million fans on her own page and absolutely dwarfs Progressive’s main page, which only has around 190,000 fans. It’s interesting to see that this is the third insurance mascot we have in our top 10 and it shows that insurance companies have invested in their mascots quite seriously. The mascot added close to 22,000 new fans and posted 56 times in period analyzed. Flo also has laudable presence on YouTube commanding over 7,000 subscribers and has uploaded close to 230 videos.

#2: M&M Spokescandies: These lovable characters, each with a distinct personality, have over 10.1 million fans on Facebook. 7 out of 10 posts contain either one or all of the Spokescandies and the most engaging post was a Thanksgiving post which received an engagement score of 358. Some of these mascots have become celebrities in their own right and now have their very own pages making it one of the most successful brand mascot franchises on social media.

#1: Vodafone Zoozoos – And completing the list is a mascot you may not have heard of, the Zoozoos, created in India for telecom giant Vodafone. The ZooZoos were introduced during the Indian Premier League Season 2 (a cricket tournament), have close to 16 million fans on Facebook and are something of a phenomenon in the sub-continent. The much loved page had a growth rate of 4.1% and added a whopping 650,000 fans in the period analyzed. 8 out of 10 of their most engaging posts contained Zoozoos.

Mascots Featured on the Brand Page

#5: Quaker Oats Guy – Fondly referred to as “Larry” by the folks at Quaker Oats, the Quaker Oats Guy should be familiar to many since a box of the much loved oats brand most probably has a place in your kitchen cupboard. The brand has close to 1.1 million fans on Facebook and posted 73 times in the period analyzed, 3 out of 10 posts contain the mascot and usually come with a couple of calls to action. An example of such a post would be the one they put up in celebration of Movember.

#4: Chester Cheetah –“It ain’t easy being cheesy” is one of Chester’s catch phrases. This brand has close to 1.2 million fans on Facebook. This edgy, cool, deep voiced and sort of in your face mascot has been squarely aimed at the younger demographic. Around 50% of fans are 21 years or younger, which shows that the mascot seems to be working.

#3: The Most Interesting Man in the World (Dos Equis) – You couldn’t have missed adverts of The Most Interesting Man in the World, either on YouTube or Facebook. The Mexican beer brand, Dos Equis, has close to 2.9 million fans on Facebook and are growing with a growth rate of almost 4.5% in the period analyzed. The Most Interesting Man in the World has also worked its way in to popular Internet culture and is widely used in various meme inspired graphics. The mascot has become so much more popular than the brand so if you search on Facebook for the Most Interesting Man in the World; there is a page which re-directs you to the Dos Equis page.

#2: Nerds Candy – It would seem that close to 7.7 million people want a tour of the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. Wonka made 32 updates in the period analyzed, out of which 25 posts contained a picture, which shows that their content strategy is visually intensive. Wonka also posts the most on Thursdays and receives the highest amount of engagement on the same day as well. It’s also interesting to see that they have posted only once on weekends in the time period analyzed.

#1: Julius Pringles – The winner that takes it all, Pringles is on the top with over 26 million fans on Facebook. Julius Pringles has been iconic in the field of snacks, is instantly recognizable across the world and has been around for close to 40 years. One of the reasons Pringles has the highest number of fans, is because they recently combined all of their geo-targeted pages, hence adding up to a whole lot of fans. The top 10 most engaging posts all contain either a box of Pringles or Mr. P.

It’s very interesting to see that 3 of the 5 mascots with separate pages are from insurance companies. Insurance companies throughout the world are known to spend a generous amount on advertising and marketing to appear more accessible and in most cases explain their products as well. Mascots as a marketing tool appear to be almost essential for an insurance company.

Brand mascots have been used for over 100 years. The recognizable “Quaker Man” has been used since the 1940’s, and there’s good reason why they have been around for so long: Brands’ mascots can reach areas that traditional marketing can’t as shown by the success of the Dos Equis man or AllState’s Mayhem. Brand mascots are simple, attractive and more importantly, communicate a message. Cereal brands make full use of this beautiful tool; the target audience for cereal brands is kids and hence the brands make their mascots colorful and peppy.

Brands should consider bringing in a mascot to help amplify their marketing strategy, as we can see above it clearly helps.

Methodology

Unmetric compiled its report by sourcing data from its social media benchmark platform. All statistics were gathered from August 1st, 2013 to September 30th, 2013. The Engagement Score is calculated based on the number of Likes, Comments, Shares and Estimated Impressions each post gets. It enables easy comparison regardless of fan numbers. Get your 6 day free trial of Unmetric here.