Character of the Week: Olympic Mascots
A day late and probably many dollars short, I'm late with the Character of the Week because I've been trying to instill a love of the modern Olympics in my nine-year-old son. Does anybody else notice a difference in interest based on age? That is why my Character of the week is (are) the Olympic Mascots.
And yes, I mean all of the "official" mascots. The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics has all of the prior mascots collected here, and it has an explanation of its own successful mascots here. From the summer of '72 when "Waldi" the multi-colored dachshund was the mascot chosen to represent the resistance, tenacity, and agility of the athletes and express the gaiety and joy of the Olympic festival in Munich through today, each host-city Olympic organizing committee has used a character or group of characters to represent the brand for their particular games. An extremely difficult task, more often criticized than praised, each mascot must be created, designed, introduced and retired in something less than six years. The mascots are the subject of an immense marketing drive and, if the committees who own them have their way, a proportionately large return on the investment.
A mascot is often developed as a fictional spokes-model to represent a brand. As characters representing brand identity, mascots operate as trademarks. Like other marks, mascots must be protected with a vigilant, enforcement effort or the investment mascot can be easily wiped away. The intense exposure for Olympic mascots means they need to be tough. As the 2010 Vancouver Olympic games progress, they present a case study in mascot creation, enforcement, and protection as the value of the Vancouver mascots is threatened by an Internet meme.
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