Making Money with a Mascot Business

Mascots are symbols usually humanoid that stand out from other everyday humans and objects. Their main function is to attract attention of which the best created ones do optimally or even automatically. Kids especially like them. For children and even some adults they are like big toys or dolls that come to life which brings out the playful child in anyone.

The Need for Mascots

Many organisations create them to promote their business. It is another differentiating factor for them against their competitors. There are many stories about mascot making their organisations and its products and services famous. For example the ”Michelin Man” from the Michelin Tyre Company made the company’s tyres known worldwide and made Michelin synonymous with tyres. Tyres by the way also means car “tires”.

Digital Mascot Designer

There are now companies which have apps and softwares that lets you design a mascot digitally for use in your digital products. There are also online freelancers that specialise in creating digital mascots. So if you have the skills of a graphics artist then this could be a good income opportunity for you. You can approach businesses that do not have a mascot yet and offer your services.

Physical Mascot Creation Companies

Mascots costumes are not cheap. They usually range between 4 to 5 digits in dollar terms. It takes a lot of knowledge to design a mascot. For example mascot heads are usually designed out of proportion to the body to improve the wearers visibility and breathing. You must be good with foam as most physical mascots are made out of foam.

You can learn these important knowledge if you have actual experience. You can practice making mascot costumes that you can wear and use your creation as a sampler of your work. Those who already create fancy costumes like cosplayers stand a good chance of gravitating towards this business.

For example you can create costumes that are not only for use as a mascot for a business. You can create halloween costumes and either sell them or rent them out. You can also do fixed statues made out of materials made for mascots. You can also create costumes that can become toys. For example you can create masks made of foam that are of higher quality than ordinary children’s masks.

All these recommendations have validity especially when you look at the number of cheap counterfeit mascot costumes being sold online. They are made of inferior material, uncomfortable and might even be dangerous but there are still people who buy them because they are cheap. If the legitimate mascot creation companies could offer higher quality products against these counterfeits they stand to make more money.

Who Owns the Intellectual Property of a Mascots

Warning: Unless those that design the digital and physical mascots Legally turnover their rights to those who bought their mascot creation services they can contend the ownership of profits that were made by the mascot. As the owner of the mascot make sure that these creators legally turnover their rights to you to avoid problems later.

Being a Mascot Suite Wearer/Performer

Let us get to the important question first: Are mascot performers paid good money? The answer is a resounding ”Yes”. At the top end there are American Sports mascots for example who are paid hundred of thousands of dollars. At the low end you see others being paid less than minimum wage daily. Like other jobs it takes experience and luck to make it big time.

At the onset being a mascot is physically and mentally demanding. You need to move a lot and it is sweaty work which could mean your mascot costume can smell from the inside and many mascot suite wearers can attest to this. You also need to be good with entertaining people and comfortable doing promotional work.

Were Is the Real Big Money for Mascots

Of course the big money is owning the intellectual property rights of the mascots. This enables you to sell unlimited digital products as well as physical merchandise.

Digital products: Of course the first digital product you can sell is the image of the mascot. It can be downloadable prints like posters, banners and sticker prints. You can also sell extension products of your mascot like a storybooks where the mascot and if you want other characters as well. You could market mascot backstories for example.

You can also sell audiobooks of your storybooks. This audiobooks can be marketed as bedtime books for children. The stories do not have to be complicated and could even be educational. You can market mascot themed educational products such as for kids to learn how to read, count, know colours and so on.

Physical Merchandise: Of course you can sell dolls and toys with the physical likeness of the mascots you own. But of course you can start out even smaller. You can sell inexpensive keychains and trinkets for starters. You can sell common character merchandise such as clothes and mugs for starters as well.

As offering physical merchandise can be a costly startup venture the best advise I can give to you if you want to sell physical merchandise is to get customer feedback regarding which physical merchandise they would likely buy. It would also be good if you can get pre-orders from your customers to ensure that you make money from your venture.

Physical Appearances: Of course we all know about Disney Mascots and how popular and profitable their physical appearances are. There are however lesser known mascots whose concert shows are also popular. For example Bananas in Pyjamas or more internationally known as Bananas in Pajamas is a children educational television series from Australia which became famous internationally.

They have a huge following that I even saw a television ad once promoting their live concert. Usually these physical appearances are geared towards children and the theme of their shows are mostly educational. Still I see other mascots which are not popular or even generic doing physical appearances in business events like a business’ opening or anniversary.

Mascot Designs

When we think about physical mascot appearances the common themes we usually associate it with are large and out of the ordinary appearances. If the mascots are part of an organisation they usually also have the name of their organisation within their costumes. Since mascots represent organisations they sometimes have a certain characteristic of the organisation within their costumes.

One thing is for sure though that mascots are there to get attention for the organisation. In Japan for example mascots are a billion dollar business. Mascots are used by many Japanese businesses to make their business standout to their customers. There are Prefectures (regions) in Japan whose mascots generate a lot of income for their respective regions.

For example Kumamon the mascot for the Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan earned $1.2 billion in economic benefits for the region. The source of this data is Wikipedia. If you are interested to learn a bit more about Kumamon and maybe apply it to your region as well read the Wikipedia article Kumamon.

Even prison organisations in Japan have mascots. This is how famous mascots are in Japan. If you look at images of Japanese mascots you can easily conclude that they are mostly designed to be cute. In contrast Indian designed mascots that are popular in this country are designed to be more human like so you must know your market.

The Wiggles
They are an Australian child entertainment group who deserve special mention. Unlike other child groups who visually rely on young presenters and mascots to attract a predominantly child audience they rely on simple outfits to attract their audience. They simply wear the same patterned outfits in different colours. Thus audiences can simply relate to one Wiggle as the Red Wiggle or the Blue Wiggle and so on.

This simple concept has made them millionaires and their entertainment services and products still continue to sell. Children for example can easily identify that the particular toy or doll is a Wiggle based on its design and colour. This is a proof that even simple outfits can be effective in making people especially entertainers stand out from the rest of their competitors. If this group can become successful then fully outfitted mascots stand a good chance to succeed as well.

Lordi
He is a Finnish heavy metal singer who performs in a “monster” costume together with his similarly costumed band. His costume is the perfect mascot for his songs. Hard Rock and Metal music has this dark themed cultural persona as popularised by black themed and sometimes medieval outfits complete with studs and spikes accessories.

In fact there are metal bands from Europe who also uses this kind of differentiation strategy to attract audiences and to let them stand apart from their competitors. They are also good to hide their true identities from the public. Lordi is well known for example from being secretive about his identity in stark contrast to his costumed alter ego on stage.

How To Start as a Mascot Franchise

If you want to generate a full-time income and even become rich by being the owner of a mascot and its intellectual property but do not have much capital like money or a business to backup your mascot you can start in social media. Design a mascot yourself and start making it famous across social media.

You can for example make short animations or comics about your mascots and publish them in YouTube. If you do not have the necessary skills to create animations or comics or maybe you just lack the time to create comics and animations because they notoriously take a long time to make you can create your own mascot suite and create your videos.

For example you can create educational videos while wearing your mascot suite. This already sets you apart from the other educational video content creators who do not have costumes which makes them indistinguishable from their competitors. Provided your video content is good you would soon start having a social brand based on your mascot.

You can then pitch your mascot products and services during your video presentation. For example you can market physical appearances at children’s events like school gatherings and children’s birthdays. It also helps if you have other skills like performing magic tricks, singing, carnival acts and so on.

The important thing is that you build a brand based on your mascot character especially online where you have a good chance of becoming viral. Remember that the real person who makes money is the owner of the mascot character and not the person wearing the mascot suite. You can for example create funny clown mascots and have them perform for your clients while you share the profits with them.

Conclusion

As previously mentioned there are many ways of making money in the mascot business but the owners of the mascot character are the ones who benefits most financially. If you have limited means to create and own a mascot character business work first to make your mascot famous online where you can start to offer digital products based from them. Later on you can expand into other physical services and merchandise.