Coming up with mascot ideas has never been my forte. How does one arrive at that conclusion, you ask? That’s a fair question, given the general dearth of invitations come up with mascot ideas that life seems to offer. Well, I work for a business that makes mascot costumes, with my job being to figure out how to construct the darned things. I’m not an ideas man; I’m an construction man.
It’s usually Sabrina who comes up with the concepts, and I just translate them into walking, talking, blank-eyed glory, but she’s on leave at the moment and we haven’t been able to find anyone to replace her. As it turns out, devising mascots is not a very common skill set. This has left us in a position where all of us costume makers have to chip in on the branding front.
Today we had to meet with a licensed re-seller of portable hyperbaric chambers. Melbourne folk know there’s not too much competition for this type of business, nor much in the way of ‘drop in’ traffic, so I don’t really get why they need a mascot. What’s it going to do? Stand on the roadside and promote the sales office to passers by, waving them in to check out second-hand medical equipment with highly specific applications?
The best I could come up with was Hyper Barry. He’s a cockatoo who can’t hide his excitement about hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Er… yeah. Don’t act like I didn’t tell you I was bad at this, not that I had a lot to work with. Sabrina would have crafted something appropriate and sophisticated, somehow weaving together the essence of the business and its niche market via a character that magically connects the dots. That’s not a skill you can just cultivate overnight.
Still, it looks Hyper Barry might be a go. The client barely batted an eyelid at it when I talked him through my proposal, so I guess he’s seen worse.