Every brand need a good villain
Earlier this week, while I was working on some talking points about successful campaigns on TikTok, I noticed that the Mucinex “BeatTheZombieFunk” hashtag has over 5.7 billion views in total. While looking deeper into this, I got introduced to Mr Mucus - a slimy green anthropomorphic character pictured below - and I’ve been obsessed since.
I absolutely love this character - I have watched way more videos of him on YouTube than I care to mention. The thing is though I don't love him because I find him adorable or like-able, but because he’s a fantastically simple representation of something I hate - the suffering I have when I’m sick. Mr Mucus is a great example of storytelling come to life.
When we think of brand mascots, we think of the personalization of the brand's identity, becoming a spokesperson for the brand. Mr Mucus doesn't fill these roles; the brand's identity is not pro-mucus and he actively encourages you not to take Mucinex. He is not a brand mascot, he is a brand villain - he is the antagonist in our story of overcoming that sickly feeling.
In great stories, one which people remember and share, our hero faces a struggle that they must overcome to change for the better and achieve what they always needed. The most common way to manifest this struggle is to have a compelling villain.
Think of some of the most popular movies throughout history - Star Wars, Jaws, The Dark Knight - the villain plays just as vital a role as the hero; and can often be the most memorable thing to come out of the movie. Without the villain, nothing would challenge our hero. They would have nothing to triumph over and everyone just goes about their average lives.
The most compelling villains get under our skin, they continue to test our heroes, making us ask what we would do in the same situation. We empathize with our hero - we actively see ourselves in the position of the hero - we are more invested in the story.
That’s what Mucinex wants to do - make us the hero of our own stories. They also want us to share our stories when they happen; telling others about how we overcame our sickness, with the help of Mucinex. The problem that Mucinex faced is that flemmy coughs aren’t exactly the most cinematic of struggles for characters to overcome.
In comes Mr Mucus - the personification of the struggle against suffering - the personification of the villain in the story. This wasn’t an accident either. When McCann were working on repositioning the Mucinex brand in 2014, they purposely transformed Mr Mucus “from representing mucus in your chest to standing for the misery sickness brings to your life”. They even go so far as to say they wanted to create an “antagonist-protagonist rapport between Mr. Mucus and the sufferers”.
Alfred Hitchcock once said that the more successful the villain, the more successful the picture. One thing is for sure, this villain has been a success for Mucinex.
He’s memorable: In unaided recognition, 61.4% of people were able to name the brand just by looking at a picture of Mr. Mucus.
He’s compelling: after relaunching Mr Mucus in 2014, Mucinex saw a 167.5% lift in search interest
He’s such a great villain that when Mucinex ran a skippable ad campaign where Mr Mucus asked viewers to skip an ad, guess what happened? People fought back and paid attention, resulting in 16 million views and a 250% lift in Google search volume for Mucinex brand.
To create a brand villain, you must present your customers with a personification or manifestation of the struggle they need to overcome. In the marketing messages you send them, it is something they can see themselves overcoming with the help of your product or service. Without this villain, it can be tougher for potential customers to understand what they are fighting again or what they should take action against.
Villains don’t always need to be a slimy green monster, the villainous function can be performed by other forces. Many different writing and storytelling coaches have tried to come up with various types of villains, I will focus on the two most common villains you will hear about:
External: These are the villians that exist in the ‘real world’ - an outside threat to our hero (like a little green slimy monster).
Internal: This is an internal obstacle or belief the hero must overcome to achieve what they always needed - it’s their fear of failure, procrastination, fear and inactivity. In this situation Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ tagline is the war-cry our heroes need to fight against these villains.
When creating your brand’s story, there are four key elements you should make sure are present.
Your Villain should be the primary source of the struggle
Given that your customer is the hero of your story, a good place to start is thinking about all the obstacles that are standing in their way to reach their ideal destination. It’s the sickness your product is trying to heal, or an attitude like procrastination your product wages war against.
Your Villain should be relatable - we need to be able to identify with them/it
Is the villain something that your customers can recognize. Is it something they have had to fight against themselves. If they are watching one of your commercials with this villain, could they see themselves in the position of the hero? This also ensures that the villain is real and not something made up for the sole purpose of scaring someone into buying a product (before people start messaging me, Halitosis was not invented by Listerine)
Your Villain should have a clear goal
Most villains share a desire to obtain power; more often than not wielding this over the hero of the story. In business storytelling, think about what power your villain wants to wield over your customers? Do they want to make our lives worse, make us do nothing and be lazy?
Make sure your villain’s weaknesses is your product, and only your product
If your villain is invincible, then the hero can never overcome them - meaning your customers will never buy your product. If your villain is too weak, then your customers can easily switch to your competitor to overcome them. In telling your business’ story, make sure your product is the villain’s Kryptonite - exclusive to them and powerful enough to overcome them.
