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BUSINESS
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Mascots top celebrities in social-media buzz

Bruce Horovitz
USA TODAY
  • Mascots garner more brand-related social-media buzz than celebrity endorsers
  • The Pillsbury Doughboy leads all mascots in recent social-media buzz
  • Danica Patrick leads all celebrity endorsers in recent social-media buzz

If you're keeping score: Pillsbury Doughboy, 10, LeBron James, 1.

That's right, the familiar Pillsbury Doughboy mascot garners more than 10 times the social-media buzz related to its brand, Pillsbury, than celebrity endorser LeBron James does related to his biggest brand sponsor, Nike, according to research to be released Monday by Synthesio, a social-media monitoring specialist.

"LeBron probably brings a lot of value to Nike, but in terms of social media and Nike, he has virtually no value at all," says Loïc Moisand, co-founder and CEO of Synthesio. "If you're a marketer that wants to raise awareness in social media, it's useless to spend money on celebrities," he says.

Kids met the Doughboy during a Pillsbury pizza-making adventure at Make Meaning Legacy Place on April 5 in Dedham, Mass.

It's an age-old argument that will probably never be settled: Do brands get their money's worth from celebrities? In terms of social-media eyeballs -- which typically relate to a younger and often more desirable demographic, it appears that mascots leave celebrity endorsers in the dust.

"It's the cuddle quotient," explains brand consultant Kate Newlin. While mascots can seem sweet, charming and integral to a brand, celebrity endorsers often seem to be little more than "rented," she says.

Except GoDaddy's Danica Patrick, that is.

Patrick, the race car driver, finished about four times higher than any other celebrity endorser in brand-related social-media buzz in the social-media research report. Moisand says it's in part, because Patrick frequently mentions GoDaddy in tweets from her personal handle. Also, he says, "she appears reachable."

"The best social media isn't scripted," says Barb Rechterman, chief marketing officer at GoDaddy. "Danica's the real deal."

While LeBron James is the real deal in the National Basketball Association basketball finals, when it comes to millions of social-media users linking him with Nike when they chat online, well, says Moisand, "they just don't care."

He suggests that Nike consider dumping LeBron in its social-media branding and, perhaps, replace him with some sort of Swoosh-like mascot.

Nike has no such plans. "It's important to note that LeBron's overall social presence is independent of Nike -- a presence that he uses as a vehicle to connect with his fans, says Nike spokesman KeJuan Wilkins.

Newlin, the brand consultant, isn't at all surprised that, as a brand endorser, the Doughboy has more social-media stretch than LeBron. "LeBron gets us to stop and take a look at what he's doing, but not to engage," she says. "Also, you want friendly, right? The Doughboy also has a heritage. We grew up with him, he's approachable, ticklish and now genuinely touchable in a virtual (kind of way)."

To be fair, Nike's James actually ranked No. 3 in brand-related social-media buzz among all celebrity endorsers -- behind Patrick for GoDaddy and singer Rihanna for Cover Girl. But all of them, except Patrick, were bested in brand social-media buzz not only by the Pillsbury Doughboy, but also by the Aflac Duck, "Flo" for Progressive Insurance and Geico's Gecko.

The social-media research study -- of everything publicly appearing on sites from Facebook to Twitter to millions of blogs and forums -- was done between November 2012 and April 2013. The study looked for any posts that mention both the brand and the celebrity or mascot behind it.

Of course, the mascots had one big advantage: They don't have another job, says Moisand, so, 100% of their efforts can be spent hyping the brand and engaging with the online community, he says.

So convincing was his own company's research to Moisand that after the study was completed, the CEO immediately ordered his company -- Synthesio -- to create its own mascot. It's a ladybug, appropriately named, Synthia.

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