The Aflac Duck has rubbed elbows with Yogi Berra, Wayne New­ton and Chevy Chase. 9Lives’ Mor­ris the cat was in a movie with Burt Reynolds, had his own per­son­al sec­re­tary and received mar­riage pro­pos­als from felines and humans. And the Pills­bury Dough­boy has moon­light­ed as an opera singer, rap artist, rock star, poet, painter, bal­let dancer, sky­div­er and skate­board­er. That’s because these fig­ures are more than just brand assets. So how and why have they accom­plished this feat and remained rel­e­vant to con­sumers? And what can oth­er brands learn from them?

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In Sep­tem­ber, Skip­py Peanut But­ter launched its Skip­py Yippee mar­ket­ing cam­paign to “spread yippee to peanut but­ter lovers every­where,” includ­ing inter­ac­tive com­po­nents on peanutbutter.com, an online Fun But­ton and a 30-sec­ond Fun Fac­to­ry TV spot high­light­ing how fun gets into Skip­py peanut but­ter, along with The Fun Nut, a hap­py peanut on Twit­ter that the brand says extends its yippee mes­sag­ing and, as of Decem­ber 11, has 12,000 fol­low­ers – which is near­ly quadru­ple that of @Skippy’s 3,200.

Whether the Fun Nut becomes a beloved cul­tur­al icon remains to be seen, but the fact remains that the most suc­cess­ful mas­cots become house­hold names and incred­i­bly pow­er­ful brand assets.

Or, as Pro­fes­sor Bernd Schmitt, direc­tor of the Cen­ter on Glob­al Brand Lead­er­ship at Colum­bia Busi­ness School, puts it: “Mas­cots are so pow­er­ful because they pro­vide an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion with the con­sumer and cre­ate a human face for the brand.”

Here’s a look at 20 of the most pow­er­ful brand mas­cots and how and why they have endured with con­sumers.

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Flo (Progressive Insurance)

TWITTER: @itsflo – 30,500 fol­low­ers (Pro­gres­sive has 35,000 fol­low­ers)

FACEBOOK: 5.4 mil­lion likes

HISTORY: Flo first appeared in 2008, in a com­mer­cial called “Check­out.”

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: “Our goal was to cre­ate a ‘store’ that made shop­ping for insur­ance a pleas­ant expe­ri­ence for the cus­tomer,” says Pro­gres­sive rep Steve Kaczyn­s­ki. “Flo was the ide­al clerk to staff the store. She’s quirky, fun and engag­ing. She’s the type of per­son you’d want to work with if you were pur­chas­ing insur­ance.”

MILESTONES: Flo recent­ly starred in her 100th ad, as well as in a spot with Cleve­land Cav­a­liers star LeBron James.

UPDATES: “Flo just hit her 100^th ad, a huge accom­plish­ment in the adver­tis­ing indus­try. That doesn’t hap­pen unless you evolve the cam­paign,” Kaczyn­s­ki says. “Ear­ly on our ads just fea­tured Flo and a cus­tomer, with a quick joke. We piv­ot­ed our strat­e­gy in the last few years to treat these com­mer­cials like a hit net­work show, rather than an adver­tis­ing cam­paign. By intro­duc­ing dif­fer­ent ele­ments you’d see in a show – like flash­backs, foil char­ac­ters, set changes and spin­offs – we’ve been able to keep the cam­paign strong.”

ADDITIONAL COMMENT: “The beau­ti­ful part about Flo is she con­nects to all kinds of audi­ences. Our num­bers show she has an appeal across all demo­graph­ics,” Kaczyn­s­ki says. “Peo­ple like Flo because they can relate to her. She’s a nor­mal per­son, not some larg­er-than-life glam­orous celebri­ty. She’s helped us extend our brand reach to places where it nev­er used to play – she’s become a pop cul­ture icon.”

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS TO HELP THE BRAND ENGAGE CONSUMERS: The Pro­gres­sive site fea­tures a Dress Like Flo guide for Hal­loween.

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Morris the Cat (9Lives)

TWITTER: @MorrisApproved – 1,600 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: 245,000 likes

HISTORY: Per the Hins­dale, Illi­nois Humane Soci­ety, Mor­ris, pre­vi­ous­ly named Lucky, was adopt­ed in 1968. Staff mem­bers noticed his “charm­ing” per­son­al­i­ty and con­tact­ed an ani­mal train­er who worked for Leo Bur­nett. When Mor­ris went to the cast­ing call for the 9Lives com­mer­cial, “He jumped on the table… and he walked right up to the art direc­tor, the big cheese, and bumped him in the head. And then Mor­ris just sat back,” the train­er said in 1995. “The art direc­tor said, ‘This is the Clark Gable of cats.’” And, from 1969 to 1978, Mor­ris com­plet­ed 58 com­mer­cials.

MILESTONES: Also per Hins­dale, Mor­ris received so much fan mail, he had his own per­son­al sec­re­tary. And, odd­ly enough, he received mar­riage pro­pos­als from “felines and humans alike.” He also starred in the movie “Shamus” with Burt Reynolds and won the Pat­sy, or the ani­mal equiv­a­lent of the Oscar, in 1972 and 1973. Mor­ris wrote three books and was also report­ed­ly was the pro­to­type for Garfield the cat, which was cre­at­ed by artist Jim Davis. Upon his death in July 1978, Mor­ris’ obit­u­ary appeared in news­pa­pers world­wide.

UPDATE/FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: 9Lives recent­ly brought Mor­ris back in its Cat’s Eye View cam­paign, a series of videos from the cat’s per­spec­tive thanks to the inclu­sion of wear­able tech­nol­o­gy. The brand says it is “reboot­ing him as a pop cul­ture pun­dit and ‘charm­ing­ly choosy’ foil to famous Inter­net felines like Grumpy Cat and Lil’ Bub.” The brand also launched pro­files for Mor­ris on Twit­ter and Insta­gram, where, the brand says, “Mor­ris com­ments on trend­ing top­ics like Tay­lor Swift’s new album release.”

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The GEICO Gecko

TWITTER: @TheGEICOGecko – 20,4oo fol­low­ers (ver­sus @Geico’s 34,000)

FACEBOOK: 314,000 likes

HISTORY: Per Geico, the idea for the Gecko came from a brain­storm­ing ses­sion with the brand’s ad agency, the Mar­tin Agency, because “Geico” was often mis­pro­nounced “Gecko.” From there, the Geico Gecko made his debut dur­ing the 1999 to 2000 tele­vi­sion sea­son.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: Per Geico, suc­cess­ful ad cam­paigns from the past have proven ani­mals cre­ate a strong con­nec­tion between cus­tomers and com­pa­nies. In addi­tion, Geico says the Gecko’s “con­stant good cheer, insa­tiable need to meet peo­ple and nat­ur­al tenac­i­ty all make him per­fect­ly suit­ed to help peo­ple find out­stand­ing val­ues on insur­ance.”

BRAND COMMENT: A Geico rep says: You should know that deep down the Gecko is a very hum­ble crea­ture and real­ly doesn’t try to pub­li­cize him­self or his appar­ent suc­cess.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: Con­sumers can access down­load­able ring­tones and Gecko mer­chan­dise on the Geico site.

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The Aflac Duck

TWITTER: @aflacduck – 62,000 fol­low­ers (ver­sus 21,000 for @Aflac)

FACEBOOK: 531,000 likes

HISTORY: Per Aflac, the Aflac Duck debuted on Jan­u­ary 1, 2000, with the tele­vi­sion com­mer­cial “Park Bench.”

BRAND COMMENT: “When a lit­tle white duck with lit­tle to say, but a lot of per­son­al­i­ty, stormed upon the scene, it made adver­tis­ing his­to­ry and trans­formed Aflac into an inter­na­tion­al pow­er­house,” Aflac says. “Aflac’s name recog­ni­tion soared from 11 per­cent to 94 per­cent where it remains today.”

MILESTONES: The Aflac Duck has starred in com­mer­cials with Yogi Berra, Wayne New­ton, Chevy Chase, Mela­nia Trump, and Carl Edwards. The Duck also appeared in the movie Lemo­ny Snicket’s A Series of Unfor­tu­nate Events. And, in 2011, the Aflac Duck made his debut in the Macy’s Thanks­giv­ing Parade.

UPDATES: In 2011, come­di­an Gilbert Got­tfried was fired as the voice of the Duck and the brand launched a nation­wide cast­ing call to find a new voice.

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Cap’n Crunch

TWITTER: @RealCapnCrunch – 36,000 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: 342,000 likes

HISTORY: First appear­ing in Sep­tem­ber 1963, a Cap’n Crunch rep says his full name is Hor­a­tio Mag­el­lan Crunch and he lives on a boat, the S.S Gup­py. The Cap’n was tem­porar­i­ly removed from pack­ag­ing as part of the “Where’s the Cap’n?” pro­mo­tion in 1985 and in 2000.

BRAND COMMENT: “We found that our con­sumer tar­get [adults] have a strong affin­i­ty for the Cap’n mas­cot,” the rep says. “As a result, we’ve engaged with con­sumers at places like SXSW, through a late-night talk show on YouTube and even lever­aged the mas­cot to gen­er­ate buzz and media atten­tion by bring­ing him to media out­lets and hav­ing him min­gle with celebri­ties.”

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: He is the host of The Cap’n Crunch Show on YouTube.

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Charlie the Tuna (Starkist)

TWITTER: @StarKistCharlie – 3,100 fol­low­ers

HISTORY: Per the StarK­ist web­site, StarKist’s Char­lie the Tuna was cre­at­ed in 1961 and was the “brain-fish” of “char­ac­ter cre­ators” and the Leo Bur­nett agency. Ini­tial char­ac­ter design for ani­ma­tion was done by the cre­ative ani­ma­tion stu­dio behind the Pink Pan­ther. Char­lie went on to star in more than 80 com­mer­cials. A rep says Char­lie is based off a real hip­ster char­ac­ter named Hen­ry Nemo, who is thought to be respon­si­ble for invent­ing jive talk.

MILESTONES: Per a time­line on the web­site, in 1991, Char­lie met a love inter­est, Pre­mia, to help intro­duce StarKist’s pre­mi­um Chunk Light Tuna, but “the rela­tion­ship is short lived.”

UPDATES: A rep says “Char­lie the Tuna has been part of the StarK­ist brand” for more than five decades, but reports say Char­lie returned to TV ads after a 30-year hia­tus in Jan­u­ary 2014 “as a clas­sic hip­ster with a fresh new look.” The “jive-talk­ing tuna” returned with “mod­ern 3D ani­ma­tion that still harkens back to the clas­sic char­ac­ter that was devel­oped more than 50 years ago,” and still includes his icon­ic catch­phrase: ‘Tell ’em Char­lie sent ya!’” a release said.

BRAND COMMENT: “Since Char­lie’s debut in 1961, his red hat, trendy glass­es and cool man­ner­isms have made him a true pop cul­ture icon, and now for the first time in more than a decade, Char­lie is reclaim­ing his star­ring role in our adver­tis­ing cam­paign in a big way,” said Mike Brookhart, direc­tor of mar­ket­ing at StarK­ist, in the release.

FUN FACTS: Char­lie has a lot mem­o­ra­bil­ia – phones, cam­eras, pres­i­den­tial decals and more, the rep says.

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Mr. Peanut (Planters)

TWITTER: @MrPeanut – 3,300 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: Near­ly 700,000 likes

HISTORY: Mr. Peanut made his first appear­ance in 1916.

MILESTONES: In 2010, Mr. Peanut spoke for the first time in 94 years in a series of stop-motion ani­ma­tion com­mer­cials, which debuted on his Face­book page. He has since been voiced by Robert Downey Jr. and Bill Had­er.

FUN EXTRAS: In 2011, Planters launched the Nut­mo­bile, a peanut-shaped vehi­cle fueled by biodiesel and pow­ered with solar ener­gy.

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Green Giant

TWITTER: @GreenGiant – 24,000 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: 1.1 mil­lion likes

HISTORY: The Green Giant made his first appear­ance in the 1920s.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: He was named after a par­tic­u­lar­ly large vari­ety of pea har­vest­ed and sold by the com­pa­ny, per the Green Giant web­site.

MILESTONES: In 1950, he became the sym­bol for the entire com­pa­ny, when the Min­neso­ta Val­ley Com­pa­ny changed its name to the Green Giant Com­pa­ny.

UPDATES: Also per the web­site, the Green Giant has “evolved into a friend­lier – and green­er – char­ac­ter,” over the years.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: The brand has been involved in an anti-bul­ly­ing ini­tia­tive called Raise a Giant. 

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Mr. Clean

TWITTER: @RealMrClean – 19,000 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: Near­ly 1 mil­lion likes

HISTORY: Per the Mr. Clean web­site, Mr. Clean first appeared in 1957 as “a mus­cu­lar, tan, bald man who cleans things very well” and his jin­gle lat­er went on to become the longest-run­ning in tele­vi­sion his­to­ry.

RECENT MILESTONES: Thanks to the “Give Mr. Clean a First Name” pro­mo­tion in 1962, he was dubbed “Ver­i­ta­bly.” In 2004, he appeared both at P. Diddy’s annu­al White Par­ty in the Hamp­tons and the Video Music Awards. Two years lat­er, he gath­ered an army of looka­likes to clean up after the Guin­ness record-set­ting World’s Largest Gin­ger­bread House in the Mall of Amer­i­ca.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: Mr. Clean is a guest cura­tor for music stream­ing ser­vice Songza. He also par­o­died Kim Kardashian’s #Break­theIn­ter­net image.

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Pillsbury Doughboy

TWITTER: @Pillsbury – 102,000 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: 3 mil­lion likes

MASCOT HISTORY: Per Gen­er­al Mills, the Pills­bury Dough­boy was cre­at­ed in 1965 by a copy­writer at Leo Bur­nett who opened a can of refrig­er­at­ed dough and “envi­sioned an image of a dough­boy pop­ping out.” From the begin­ning, he has been dressed in a chef’s hat bear­ing the Pills­bury logo as well as a white neck­er­chief. The ini­tial doll cost $16,000 to devel­op and had five bod­ies and 15 heads to cre­ate numer­ous looks and posi­tions. Pri­or to com­put­er­i­za­tion, it took 24 indi­vid­ual shots for every one sec­ond of com­mer­cial for the Doughboy’s stop-motion ani­ma­tion, Gen­er­al Mills says.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: He was named “Pop­pin’ Fresh,” which Gen­er­al Mills says “[per­son­i­fies] the product’s fresh­ness and qual­i­ty.” With­in three years of his debut in 1965 in a cres­cent roll com­mer­cial, the Dough­boy had an 87 per­cent recog­ni­tion fac­tor among con­sumers, Gen­er­al Mills says.

FUN FACTS: Paul Frees, the voice of Boris Bade­n­ov in “The Adven­tures of Rocky and Bull­win­kle” was tapped as the first voice. His first words were, “Hi! I’m Pop­pin’ Fresh, the Pills­bury Dough­boy,” which was fol­lowed by, “Noth­in’ says lovin’ like bakin’ in the oven, and Pills­bury says it best.” When Frees died in 1986, Jeff Bergman, the voice of Char­lie the Tuna, took over. And, cur­rent­ly, JoBe Cerny por­trays the Dough­boy.

MILESTONES: As of 1998, Gen­er­al Mills says the Dough­boy received 200 fan let­ters a week, and Pills­bury received 1,500 requests for auto­graphed pho­tos. He has also been in the Macy’s Thanks­giv­ing Day Parade.

UPDATES: In the late 1960s and ear­ly 1970s, he was seen as a helper, friend and instruc­tor to fam­i­ly cooks, but he has since been fea­tured as an opera singer, a rap artist, a rock star, a poet, a painter, a bal­let dancer, a sky­div­er and skate­board­er. He has also been seen play­ing the har­mon­i­ca, accor­dion, bugle, elec­tric gui­tar and vio­lin, Gen­er­al Mills says.

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Tony the Tiger (Frosted Flakes)

TWITTER: @realtonytiger – 17,500 fol­low­ers.

FACEBOOK: Frost­ed Flakes has 1.1 mil­lion likes

MASCOT HISTORY: In 1952, the char­ac­ter of Tony was vot­ed the favorite placed on pack­ages for a new cere­al, Kellogg’s Sug­ar Frost­ed Flakes of Corn, a brand rep says. Three oth­er char­ac­ters – Katy the Kan­ga­roo, Elmo the Ele­phant and Newt the Gnu – also appeared. In 1953, Leo Bur­nett fur­ther devel­oped Tony for a four-col­or ad in the August issue of Life mag­a­zine.

RECENT MILESTONES: Tony made head­lines in Novem­ber when an ad tied to Atlanta Pride telling con­sumers to “wear your stripes with pride,” received crit­i­cism from some groups.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS THE BRAND USES TO ENGAGE: Tony posts GIFs such as this and this, as well as #TBT mes­sag­ing. The brand also sells per­son­al­ized box­es of Frost­ed Flakes.

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Ronald McDonald (McDonald’s)

TWITTER: @McDonalds, which encour­ages users to tweet #RonaldM­c­Don­ald

MASCOT HISTORY: Ronald McDon­ald made his first appear­ance in 1963 in a region­al tele­vi­sion com­mer­cial. And, begin­ning in 1966, he offi­cial­ly became the “smil­ing, friend­ly face and spokesman of McDonald’s,” says McDonald’s rep Steve Mazei­ka.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: “Ronald brings to life the fun of the McDonald’s brand. In addi­tion to being the smil­ing, friend­ly face of McDonald’s, he embod­ies the company’s ded­i­ca­tion to the hap­pi­ness and well-being of peo­ple world­wide,” Mazei­ka says.

MILESTONES: Over the last year, Ronald has brought indoor snow sled­ding to a Malaysian mall, bro­ken world records at the Inter­na­tion­al Red­head Fes­ti­val, and clowned around in Rio dur­ing the World Cup, the rep says.

UPDATES: Ronald’s attire has evolved over the years, includ­ing an update in 2014 in which he swapped out his yel­low one-piece jump­suit for yel­low car­go pants, accom­pa­nied by a red-and-white striped rug­by shirt, a red blaz­er with an “M” on the front pock­et, and his sig­na­ture on the back. To roll with the times, his tra­di­tion­al bowtie and his new red blaz­er will be reserved for spe­cial occa­sions, McDonald’s says. His red shoes and red-and-white striped socks remain the same. For every­day occa­sions, Ronald wears a new yel­low vest to match his yel­low car­go pants and rug­by shirt. “The lat­est cloth­ing reflects the new role and chang­ing times,” the brand says.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: Ronald just launched his own Insta­gram account, which, the brand says, “is per­fect for shar­ing all of his fun adven­tures around the world with friends and fol­low­ers on social media.” He also jumped out of an air­plane in a recent Insta­gram video stunt.

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Energizer Bunny

TWITTER: @EnergizerBunny – 8,900 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: 377,000 likes

MASCOT HISTORY: Per Ener­giz­er, the Bun­ny first appeared in a TV spot in 1989.

MILESTONES: In 2006, “ener­giz­er bun­ny” was added to the Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary as “a per­sis­tent or inde­fati­ga­ble per­son or phe­nom­e­non.” In 2009, the Bun­ny appeared in the Macy’s Thanks­giv­ing Day Parade.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: The Ener­giz­er Bun­ny tweets #TBT images and did the Ice Buck­et Chal­lenge. He also shares stop-motion videos.

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Maytag Repairman

TWITTER: @TheMaytagMan – 12,600 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: 131,000 likes

MASCOT HISTORY: Per the Globe and Mail, May­tag intro­duced the Repair­man as “the loneli­est guy in town” in 1967 in yet anoth­er cam­paign cre­at­ed by Leo Bur­nett. Jesse White played the role for more than two decades, film­ing 68 com­mer­cials. He was sub­se­quent­ly played by three oth­er actors until his most recent update ear­li­er this year.

UPDATES: In Jan­u­ary, May­tag launched a cam­paign in which it trans­formed the May­tag Repair­man into the May­tag Man, a younger, slim­mer, hunki­er ver­sion who plays the role of the machine and the “human embod­i­ment of the brand’s core val­ues of reli­a­bil­i­ty, dura­bil­i­ty and pow­er.”

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: “The May­tag Man is a cre­ative inter­pre­ta­tion of our mot­to, ‘What’s Inside Mat­ters,’ illus­trat­ing all the human and relat­able virtues that exist inside appli­ances – per­for­mance, depend­abil­i­ty, pow­er,” said Beck. “We want to rec­og­nize and draw a con­nec­tion to indi­vid­u­als who work with strength, resilience and per­sis­tence, just like our appli­ances, to get the job done.”

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS THE BRAND USES TO ENGAGE: The brand launched a new Twit­ter pres­ence, @TheMaytagMan after the revamp. He has been known to tweet memes, GIFs and even for Talk Like a Pirate Day.

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Morton Salt Girl

TWITTER: @mortonsalt – 1,100 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: 183,000

MASCOT HISTORY: In 1914, Mor­ton hired adver­tis­ing agency N.W. Ayer and Com­pa­ny to devel­op a mar­ket­ing cam­paign that would pro­mote the anti-cak­ing prop­er­ties of their salt.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: The Mor­ton Salt Girl and the brand’s “When It Rains It Pours” slo­gan were cre­at­ed to illus­trate that Mor­ton Salt could flow freely even in damp weath­er. Accord­ing to a press release, the lit­tle girl with the umbrel­la was intro­duced on the famil­iar blue round pack­age of Mor­ton Salt and in a print ad in the Octo­ber issue of Good House­keep­ing.

MILESTONES: The Mor­ton Salt Girl recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed her 100^th birth­day.

UPDATES: Her look has changed over the years to include the col­or yel­low in 1941 and a short­er dress in 1968. To coin­cide with her 100th birth­day in 2014, she was updat­ed again with “clean­er, sim­pli­fied linework,” the brand says.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: The Mor­ton Salt Girl has her own Pin­ter­est board and the brand pushed a label design con­test ear­li­er this year.

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Kool-Aid Man

FACEBOOK: 123,000 likes

MASCOT HISTORY: Per the Hast­ings Muse­um in Kool-Aid’s birth­place of Hast­ings, Nebras­ka, a Smil­ing Face Pitch­er was intro­duced short­ly after the brand was sold to Gen­er­al Foods in 1953 and when Kraft Foods acquired Gen­er­al Foods, they “refined the Kool-Aid pitch­er into Kool-Aid Man.”

FUN FACTS: Kool-Aid is the offi­cial soft drink of Nebras­ka.

ANY UPDATES: In 2013, Kool-Aid Man got “a brand new mod­ern look and dis­tinc­tive voice,” a press release said. He also became CGI-gen­er­at­ed and was giv­en “his own char­ac­ter­is­tic sound, expand­ed vocab­u­lary and devel­oped per­son­al­i­ty.”

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: In June, Kool-Aid launched an Android- and iOS-enabled Kool-Aid Man Pho­to­Bomb app, which enables fans to super­im­pose dif­fer­ent images of Kool-Aid Man into their per­son­al pho­tos. Per Google Play, the app has between 10,000 and 50,000 down­loads.

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Brawny Man

TWITTER: @Brawny – 17,500 fol­low­ers

FACEBOOK: 863,000 likes

MASCOT HISTORY: Per a press release, the Brawny Man first made his debut in 1974.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: “Through last year’s con­test and oth­er con­sumer feed­back, we dis­cov­ered how clear­ly our core con­sumers iden­ti­fy the Brawny Man as some­one who is strong in body and char­ac­ter, yet very sen­si­tive,” said Michael Burandt, Geor­gia-Pacif­ic exec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent and pres­i­dent of North Amer­i­can con­sumer prod­ucts, in a press release.

UPDATES: A 2003 press release says the Brawny Man was trans­formed from blonde and mus­tached to dark-haired, dim­pled and clean-shaven, but his plaid shirt remained.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: The Brawny Man shares memes, such as this and this. He also has a Dress like the Brawny Man pro­mo­tion on Tum­blr and worked with the Movem­ber Foun­da­tion by mod­el­ing new mus­tach­es each week in order to raise aware­ness about men’s can­cers.

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Gorton’s Fisherman

TWITTER: @gortonsseafood – 6,100 fol­low­ers.

FACEBOOK: 162,000 likes

MASCOT HISTORY: In 1975, the Gorton’s Fish­er­man appeared on TV for the first time.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: Accord­ing to Gorton’s, the Fish­er­man rep­re­sents “the unwa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion of hun­dreds of fish­er­men past and present whose lives have cen­tered around a pas­sion for great seafood and who have been proud to call the rugged and beau­ti­ful town of Glouces­ter their home­port.”

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS: The brand is active on Pin­ter­est, includ­ing a Trust the Gorton’s Fish­er­man board.

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Captain Morgan

TWITTER: @CaptainMorganUS – 16,500 fol­low­ers

MASCOT HISTORY: Accord­ing to a brand rep, Cap­tain Hen­ry Mor­gan has been on the brand’s bot­tle since the ear­ly 1970s. He was a real-life char­ac­ter who one of the most infa­mous buc­ca­neers of the 17th cen­tu­ry, a rep says. “From his real-life adven­tures on the high seas to achiev­ing knight­hood and becom­ing the Gov­er­nor of Jamaica, it is his life that con­tin­ues to inspire the Cap­tain Mor­gan Rum Com­pa­ny, which was estab­lished in 1945,” the rep adds.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: Cap­tain Mor­gan “pos­sessed an adven­tur­ous spir­it that was unmatched and his lega­cy con­tin­ues to inspire the Cap­tain Mor­gan Rum Com­pa­ny, its inno­va­tion and pas­sion for adven­ture,” the rep says.

FUN DIGITAL EXTRAS THE BRAND USES TO ENGAGE: The Cap­tain tweets #One­Sen­tenceBed­timeSto­ries and memes. He is also active on Insta­gram and Pin­ter­est.

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The Most Interesting Man in the World (Dos Equis)

TWITTER: @DosEquis – 64,500 fol­low­ers

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MASCOT HISTORY: In 2006, Dos Equis debuted the Most Inter­est­ing Man in the World.

WHY THE BRAND CHOSE THIS MASCOT: Accord­ing to a press release, the cam­paign seeks to “help pre­mi­um beer and spir­its drinkers in their quest to live more inter­est­ing lives, rein­forced by his catch­phrase: ‘Stay thirsty my friends.’” And, Dos Equis says, the Most Inter­est­ing Man “appeals to the key Dos Equis con­sumer — adult men who live or aspire to live ‘inter­est­ing’ lives” with his “unmatched suave and dis­tin­guished charis­ma.”

Or, as a rep puts it, “When we set out to cre­ate the cam­paign, we decid­ed to nev­er use a mas­cot or a spokesman. Rather, we want­ed to cre­ate a man who was inter­est­ing, who just so hap­pened to have an affin­i­ty for our brand.” T

he Most Inter­est­ing Man allows young men to see not a com­peti­tor to them­selves, but rather a man that they could be at some point in the future. Some­one they could aspire to be like, if they made the right choic­es in life, the rep adds.

In addi­tion, the rep says, “We knew that in order to stand out in the crowd­ed beer cat­e­go­ry that we need­ed to be dif­fer­ent and more inter­est­ing. When cast­ing, we had a gen­er­al sense of what we were look­ing for. But we didn’t real­ly know what he’d look like until our actor walked through the door. He just had ‘it.’ And there he was.”

BRAND COMMENT: The rep says the brand defines its tar­get as social explor­ers, or men 21 to 34, who have a nat­ur­al sense of adven­ture and a healthy appetite for nov­el­ty and exper­i­men­ta­tion.

“Our guy enjoys doing things that are a bit “off the beat­en path,” has a lot of friends but tends to be a leader, rather than a fol­low­er,” the rep says. “There’s a fun­ny thing about our tar­get: They like inter­est­ing guys who are doing amaz­ing things, but they don’t want to be com­pared to peo­ple their age who are doing inter­est­ing and amaz­ing things. Because instead of look­ing at their peers who are good look­ing and suc­cess­ful in awe, they look at them with dis­dain: a bet­ter-than-them­selves-mir­ror-image that will steal their thun­der and their girl­friend.”

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