Is a wave of elimination coming for corporate characters?

2013 was another year that saw a steady stream of new characters debuting from companies and local governments. However, Mr. Rikukawa, President of Character Data Bank, a character marketing consulting firm, cautions that "many characters have lost sight of their purpose amid the boom."
What should corporate character communication look like today? Tatsuya Yamamoto of Dentsu Inc. Marketing Design Center asked about recent industry changes and future prospects.

Multimedia has created fertile ground for characters to thrive

Yamamoto: From your long-standing perspective observing the character industry, what trends or changes surrounding characters in recent years stand out to you?

Rikukawa: Generally speaking, it's clearly an unprecedented development that local mascots like Kumamon have successfully leveraged social media to gain fans and even created significant markets through merchandising.

Yamamoto: Kumamon truly is unprecedented (Editor's note: For insights into Kumamon's success, see this article ). Your company also released its first specialized corporate character data collection last year, the 'CharaBiz Power Book - Corporate Character Edition'. The adoption of characters in corporate communications is surging rapidly, isn't it?

Rikukawa: That's been a particularly noticeable trend over the last two years or so. The background to this increase in corporate characters is that we've entered a full-fledged internet era with multi-media proliferation. We've shifted from an era where running a TV commercial could deliver a message to a certain volume of people, to an era where companies themselves use social media to engage in detailed communication with consumers.

Yamamoto: On the corporate side, the increased number of available media channels has made it easier to create and utilize characters. On the consumer side, people have become more adept at using new media and digital tools.

Rikukawa: Against this backdrop, companies increasingly believe messages delivered through characters are more readily accepted by consumers than direct corporate messaging, leading to more active character use.

Are characters now targeting an ageless audience?

Yamamoto: This broad acceptance of characters is often attributed to Japanese cultural traits. That said, in my work developing corporate characters, I'm always asked about the target audience. Isn't it ultimately aimed at children or women?

Rikukawa: That's absolutely not the case. In fact, our own research shows that the group who dislike characters makes up less than 10% of the total population. Even for existing characters widely perceived as targeting women, the favorability rating among men is surprisingly high.

Yamamoto: Of course, it's natural that certain demographics respond more or less effectively depending on the target audience. But can we definitively say character communication functions universally?

Rikukawa: I believe we're very close. Everyone under their early 50s grew up with anime and tokusatsu heroes – they're the character generation. Combined with Japan's cultural trait of being surrounded by characters daily, there shouldn't be any sense of incongruity. A trend visible in surveys over the past five years is that while character appeal used to dip among adolescents (middle/high schoolers) who tend to dislike childish things, that dip is now much less pronounced.

Yamamoto: What does that signify?

Rikukawa: Generally, characters are no longer perceived as childish. In other words, I think it means they've gained widespread acceptance. It's also influenced by the fact that we've entered an era where the so-called character generation holds decision-making power, even on the content-creating side, like corporate advertising managers.

Yamamoto: I see. It makes sense that the rise in corporate characters could be partly because the key decision-makers are from a generation that likes characters and doesn't feel uncomfortable with them. It's interesting to see this broader upward trend being driven by that older generation.

Consumer "Participation" as the Keyword

Rikukawa: It always strikes me as curious how, once a character becomes a mascot, people seem to find it cute regardless of whether they know the character or not.

Yamamoto: Costumes are really emphasized a lot lately. We often get requests for corporate character designs to be planned with the assumption they'll be three-dimensional. I feel costumes have utility as a "space" where consumers can experience the character's world.

Rikukawa: Just as live music is being reevaluated in the music industry, the value of real-world spaces is rising precisely because we live in a networked society. Fans become fans by actually interacting with the character in person. Then they share that personal experience on social media. This cycle of individual experience to sharing is what sustains character communication.

Yamamoto: Exactly. Consumers participate in corporate communication through these "places." This "participatory nature" might be becoming the key to character communication.

Rikukawa: With characters, the process of having people understand their worldview, narrative, and everything behind them—and then liking them—is crucial. On the other hand, I get the impression that many characters created just to ride the recent "yuru-chara" boom—characters that appear and disappear in an instant—are putting the cart before the horse.

Have they strayed from their original purpose?

Yamamoto: I also believe corporate characters should never be created just because they're trendy. They should be a solution considered only when there's a genuine communication need to utilize the character. If we're currently in a phase where many are being created, the next phase is about how each one will be effectively utilized.

Rikukawa: We're undoubtedly entering an era of consolidation. Recently, I've received several inquiries from companies wanting to commercialize their popular mascots. My advice is always the same: first, understand the risks of commercialization without experience, and stay true to the original purpose – using the character to solve the company's communication challenges.

Yamamoto: Rather than simply pursuing licensing business through merchandising, it's crucial to strategically develop it by considering how merchandising itself impacts corporate communication and core business.

Rikukawa: Exactly. It's better to build the strategy around incorporating merchandising into the communication strategy, not starting with merchandising as the goal. With that foundation, there's definitely potential to gain new fans through merchandising, and I think actively using it as one media channel is a good approach.

Yamamoto: So, the key is to develop corporate characters with a clear purpose and a medium-to-long-term vision, right?

Rikukawa: In the industry, it's said that if a character survives for 30 or 40 years, it becomes an enduring presence passed down for generations. For corporate characters, this continuity holds even greater significance. To ensure recent trends don't just fade as fleeting fads, I think it's crucial for everyone to revisit their character's original purpose at this juncture.