Bring Back the Big Costume
Somewhere between the fun run sausage sizzle and the under-10s prizegiving, the brand mascot quietly vanished. Not killed off, just mothballed. Too earnest. Too awkward. Too much eye contact. And yet, in 2026, I keep spotting them again. Not on screens or feeds, but physically there. Sweating in foam heads at A and P shows, turning up to regional openings, waving like they mean it. It turns out embarrassment was never the problem. Absence was.
The best ones are not slick. They wobble. They arrive late. They have handlers who look mildly stressed and a bit proud. Kids do not care if the head is crooked. Adults secretly love it too. Mascots do something most modern marketing avoids. They ask for attention without explanation. No value prop. No justification. Just presence. You remember them because they stood next to you, not because they targeted you.
I watched one recently work a crowd with the confidence of someone who knew their job was to be ridiculous. No freebies. No QR codes. Just hugs, terrible dancing, and a willingness to commit. That commitment is the bit we lost for a while. Brands got nervous about being laughed at. But laughter is not the same as mockery. It is often the first step to affection.
There is a lesson here for agencies and marketers who keep chasing relevance like it is a fragile thing. Sometimes relevance looks like showing up in a hot suit on a windy day and sticking it out. Being remembered is not about being clever. It is about being there, in the flesh, waving at passing traffic and refusing to disappear.
The best ones are not slick. They wobble. They arrive late. They have handlers who look mildly stressed and a bit proud. Kids do not care if the head is crooked. Adults secretly love it too. Mascots do something most modern marketing avoids. They ask for attention without explanation. No value prop. No justification. Just presence. You remember them because they stood next to you, not because they targeted you.
I watched one recently work a crowd with the confidence of someone who knew their job was to be ridiculous. No freebies. No QR codes. Just hugs, terrible dancing, and a willingness to commit. That commitment is the bit we lost for a while. Brands got nervous about being laughed at. But laughter is not the same as mockery. It is often the first step to affection.
There is a lesson here for agencies and marketers who keep chasing relevance like it is a fragile thing. Sometimes relevance looks like showing up in a hot suit on a windy day and sticking it out. Being remembered is not about being clever. It is about being there, in the flesh, waving at passing traffic and refusing to disappear.