I've been making films since I was 14.
I started with skateboard videos. Then I filmed weddings. Then a fishing show that aired on TV. Then I moved deeper into commercials. After all these years, one thing is still true for me.
People remember people.
They usually do not remember a clean dashboard shot, a polite voiceover, and a feature list that sounds like every other feature list in SaaS.
I make commercials, but I don't like commercials. Most B2B SaaS video still feels like homework. It opens with the product. It explains too much. It plays it safe. Leadership feels comfortable. The market scrolls past it anyway.
I don't really care for safe videos. Safe ads will lose over time.
If you run demand gen, you feel this pain fast. You need more than one nice-looking hero video. You need hooks. You need cutdowns. You need square, vertical, and horizontal. You need fresh creative for paid. You need something your CEO can approve and your ad account can actually use.
That's why I like mascots.
I'm talking about a recurring character. A face. A personality. Someone your audience starts to recognize. Someone who can carry the pain point of the brand in a way buyers will actually remember.
Key Takeaways
- Because 95% of B2B buyers are currently out-of-market according to the B2B Institute, top-of-funnel videos must prioritize memorable character-driven hooks over detailed feature explanations.
- System1 research indicates that ads featuring recurring characters are 23% more likely to drive large market share gains and reach 92% brand recognition.
- The B2B Institute found that emotional marketing campaigns generate an average of 1.4 large business effects, significantly outperforming rational campaigns which average only 0.2 effects.
- G2 reports that B2B software purchases involve five-to-eight-person buying groups, making memorable recurring characters easier for internal stakeholders to reference than generic dashboard screenshots.
- AI email coaching tool Lavender generated over 300 campaign videos by using a recognizable bad salesman character named Lavender Joe to embody specific buyer pain points.
- Batch-shooting 15 short video ads in a single location yields up to 45 varied aspect-ratio assets, reducing the cost per asset to approximately $667 on a $30,000 budget.
Safe Feels Comfortable. Comfortable Gets Ignored.
A lot of SaaS teams think safe creative protects the budget.
I think the opposite.
Video is table stakes now. 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool. Vidyard also saw an 88% year-over-year jump in videos created. So if your ad looks like the other ads in the feed, you are paying to blend in.
That gets expensive.
Safe marketing is boring. It's old. Too many competitors are already doing it. If you're doing what your competitors are doing, you're not gonna stand out.
And if you don't stand out, your media dollars are pushing weak creative.
I see this all the time with the dashboard debate. A team wants the UI in the first three seconds because it feels safer. It feels more qualified. It feels more direct. Fine. I'm open to it. If the product shot helps the right person think, "okay, this could help me," great.
But I would never build the whole campaign around that one move.
A product shot at the forefront of the video screams, this is a commercial. People are already sick of getting slapped in the face with still another commercial. So if that first frame feels too much like an ad, you've made the job harder for yourself.
I believe we can stop the scroll without the dashboard shot.
A lot of people don't care about the dashboard first. They care about whether you understand their problem. They care about whether the ad is interesting enough to keep watching. Once you have their eyes, then you can reveal the product and keep them there.
And if you're smart, you test both.
That's a big reason I batch shoot. I'd rather leave with a range of cuts than one precious "safe" video everyone is scared to touch. One safe hero asset is a fragile bet. If that single video flops, there are no other videos to lean on.
Short helps too. Vidyard found 65% of viewers stay engaged to the end when a business video is under one minute. That fits how I like to work. I like 15-second and 30-second spots. I like multiple hooks. I like giving the ad account more than one shot.
Most Buyers Are Not Ready Today
This part matters a lot.
You are usually marketing to people who are not buying right now. The B2B Institute says 95% of B2B buyers are not in-market at any given time. So top-of-funnel video has a very simple job.
Create memory now.
That way the brand is sitting there later, when the buyer finally cares.
This is where mascots shine.
If someone is not booking a demo this week, a long feature explanation is not doing much for you. A memorable face can. A strong line can. A weird scenario can. Funny is an emotion, and people will remember an emotion.
Top-of-mind matters more than people think. TrustRadius found 79% of buyers already knew the product they eventually bought before starting research, and 70% bought the product that was already top of mind. That should get the attention of any performance marketer.
Memory is not fluff. Memory helps future pipeline.
And remember, you're rarely selling to one person. G2 says B2B software deals usually involve five-to-eight-person buying groups. Your message has to travel across sales, marketing, finance, IT, and leadership.
A recurring character travels better than a dashboard screenshot.
People can say, "Oh yeah, that awkward sales guy." Or, "Oh yeah, that magician ad." That kind of shorthand is gold when a buying group starts talking internally.
A Recurring Character Gives Your Brand a Face
This isn't just my gut. The research backs it up too.
System1 looked at ads with recurring characters, recurring scenarios, and other memorable brand devices. They found recurring characters were 23% more likely to drive very large share gains. System1 also found ads with a recognizable character reached 92% brand recognition, compared with 86% for ads without one.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
People remember the recurring stuff. The face. The wardrobe. The line. The little hand gesture. The world the character lives in. Memorability holds in the mind.
Emotion matters too. The B2B Institute found emotional campaigns averaged 1.4 very large business effects. Rational campaigns averaged 0.2. That gap is huge.
And humor helps, when it is grounded properly. A meta-analysis of 369 correlations found humor lifts attention, positive feeling, brand attitude, and purchase intention. It also warned that weak humor can hurt credibility.
I agree with that.
Random comedy is risky. Comedy tied to the audience's real pain is powerful.
That's the whole trick.
I'm not trying to make B2B weird just for the sake of being weird. My goal is to make the brand memorable. Sometimes people laugh out loud. Sometimes it's just a mental laugh. Both are useful. Both create a mark in the brain.
You can see this in consumer marketing all day long. People remember the Dos Equis guy. They remember the man in the Axe commercials. They remember Ronald McDonald. B2B buyers are still people. They are not immune to character.
And in crowded categories, character helps even more. When five companies all promise better workflow, better automation, better insights, better AI, or better compliance, another feature-heavy video does not help much. A character can.
Lavender Joe Proved This to Me in a Big Way
The clearest example for me is Lavender.
They're an AI email coaching tool for sales teams. We built a recurring character called Lavender Joe. He was a bad salesman. That was the whole point. He said the exact things salespeople are tired of hearing. "Do you have 15 minutes to chat?" "Do you want to explore synergies?"
That language mattered.
The audience recognized it immediately. The joke was specific. It was written for salespeople, not for everybody on earth. And that is why people connected with it.
Lavender Joe was funny, sure. More important, he was relatable.
People commented that they used to be Lavender Joe. Some said they had sent bad pitches like that before. That's when you know the character is doing real work. The audience sees themselves in the joke, and the brand gets much harder to forget.
We kept building that world. We put him in a lime green suit so he stood out right away. We had the email police drag him away. We shot him in a courtroom. We put him on a park bench. In one piece, we opened with him getting arrested and then rewound the story.
Sometimes a hook doesn't need to be dialogue. The hook can be a strong visual.
That's what I wanted there. I wanted people to stop and think, what the heck is going on here? I wanted that little moment where they wonder if they're on LinkedIn or watching some tiny Netflix scene. I've always loved that cinematic feeling. My ABC rule is simple: Always Be Cinematic.
Over time, that campaign grew into more than 300 videos.
That gave Lavender a whole universe, not just one ad. Prospects mentioned Lavender Joe during demo calls. People recognized the character at events. The actor behind him was even recognized while traveling. That is a massive win for a B2B SaaS brand.
And here's what I really like about that campaign. Lavender Joe was not some random mascot dropped in because mascots are trendy. He embodied the pain point. He was the bad behavior in human form. That gave us endless room to keep writing fresh scripts without losing the thread.
That's how you beat ad fatigue. Keep the same big idea. Change the scenario. Change the hook. Change the pain point. Keep the face.
I've done this in other ways too. With Schoox, their onboarding doc said the brand personality was fun and magical. So I created a magician character. Simple. The character came from the brand itself. That always works better than forcing a random idea onto the company.
How I Build a Mascot Without Making It Cringe
This is usually where teams get nervous.
Fair enough. Humor is hard with humans. Art is opinion, not fact.
So I keep the process practical.
First, I need the basics. Who are we talking to? What problem are you solving? What makes you different? I'll often ask a client, "tell me what your product does like I'm 10." I'll also ask, "give me a metaphor for how your product works."
That usually unlocks the good stuff.
Then I look for the person hidden inside the pain point. If the audience hates bad prospecting, maybe the character is the overconfident rep who keeps messing it up. If the brand feels playful, maybe the hero is a magician. If the category is dry, that is often even more reason to give it a face.
Then I write. Then I rewrite.
I'm not a professional in their industry. I'm a professional in my industry. So I work closely with the client until the lingo feels right and the jokes fit the ICP. I want their audience to hear the line and instantly know, yep, this video is for me.
That is how you keep the comedy grounded.
I also want a human actor carrying the part. AI can help me brainstorm. I use it. But there's that human nuance that AI doesn't have. A tiny facial expression can make the whole ad. A pause can make the whole ad. A deadpan stare can make the whole ad.
Mascots live or die on those little moments.
And no, I'm not trying to offend people. I like bold and sometimes unhinged comedy, but I never want humor that punches down. You can push things far without making the audience feel bad.
Why This Makes Life Easier for Demand Gen
If you're feeding paid social, a mascot gives you more than a nice brand play.
It gives you a content engine.
I can shoot 10 to 15 short ads in one day when we stay in one location and plan properly. Then I convert those into square and vertical too. So 15 commercials can turn into 45 assets. That gives your team a real testing library, not one fancy video everyone is scared to burn out.
And once you have a recurring character, the creative gets easier to expand. One core 30-second script can turn into a 15-second cut, an alternate opening, and then multiple aspect ratios on top of that. Same world. Same face. More variations.
That helps with fatigue. It helps with testing. It helps with messaging.
It also helps with sequencing.
I like short, funny top-of-funnel spots first. Those are there to build recall. Then I retarget viewers with longer explainers that go deeper into the product. Even the B2B Institute points to roughly 46% brand building and 54% activation as the sweet spot in B2B. So if you are trying to do only activation, you're leaving the brand side weak.
And if leadership still wants the dashboard right up front, fine. We can test that too. I'm collaborative. I just want enough room in the campaign to test the less dashboardy version as well.
I've seen some of these cinematic brand videos outperform traditional direct-response ads for clients. I'm careful when I say that because I don't handle the paid ads. I handle the creative. But I've seen enough to know that memorable top-of-funnel work can help the whole funnel.
What to Tell Your CEO or CFO
If you're the internal champion trying to sell this upstairs, I'd keep the pitch simple.
First, one safe video is a bigger gamble than a batch of strong videos. One asset can fail. A batch gives you options. If a couple flop and a couple win, you're still in good shape.
Second, this is a practical way to feed the funnel. If the campaign costs around $30,000 and produces 15 videos that become 45 total assets, your cost per final asset lands around $667. That's a very different conversation than "we want one expensive brand film."
Third, brand and performance work together. They are not enemies. In high-ticket B2B, one new customer can pay off the whole production budget. That is very real math.
And yes, creative still needs enough media behind it. If leadership gives the campaign a dollar a day, don't expect miracles. The best video in the world still needs a real chance to run.
I also help teams get buy-in before production. I often write sample scripts and big ideas up front so the CEO or CFO can react before the spend is approved. We never go to the production day with a bad script. By the time cameras roll, leadership should already feel good.
Final Thought
If your competitors are all running dry, safe, corporate-looking video, you already have your opening.
Give the brand a face.
Give the audience a feeling.
Give your media team more than one shot.
A mascot will not save a bad product. It will not fix a tiny ad budget. And just because an ad looks cinematic does not mean it will perform. The script, the acting, the sound, and the message still have to hit.
But if you want memorability, if you want more testable creative, and if you want your brand to stay in someone's head long before they book a demo, a recurring character is one of the strongest tools you can use.
I've seen it happen.
We create funny videos out of complex products.
Always Be Cinematic.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I measure the success of a top-of-funnel mascot campaign?
Don't look at immediate demo bookings. You're building memory for the 95% of buyers not in-market. Track view-through rates and engagement. Emotional campaigns average 1.4 large business effects. Measure the resulting long-term lift in branded search and retargeting CTR.
Will a funny mascot damage our software's credibility with enterprise buyers?
Random comedy is a liability, but pain-driven humor wins. Research analyzing 369 correlations proves humor significantly boosts purchase intention. If the joke is highly specific to your ICP's daily friction, it proves you understand their problem better than a boring whitepaper ever could.
How do we transition from a mascot hook to bottom-of-funnel activation?
Stop the scroll with the mascot, then retarget with deep-dive product explainers. The ideal B2B budget split is roughly 46% brand and 54% activation. Your funny character spot builds memory. Your 90-second dashboard walkthrough closes the logic gap when they're finally ready.
Should our B2B mascot be a live-action human or an animated character?
I always bet on live-action. Humans connect with human nuance – a deadpan stare does heavy lifting that animation can't easily replicate. Plus, it is much faster to batch shoot 15 live-action hooks in a single day than wait weeks for animation rendering. Keep it agile.
How do we prevent ad fatigue when using the same brand mascot?
You build a content engine. Keep the character's face, but constantly rotate hooks and pain points. Since 65% of viewers finish videos under one minute, we shoot dozens of short variations in one day to keep paid feeds perfectly refreshed without burning out.
