Help me find character-driven 'crazes'!

June 27, 2007 8:23 AM

In order to assist with a business plan, I'm looking for examples (within the last 5 years) of character-driven memes or products that "came out of nowhere" and rapidly built wealth for their creators (and/or licensors).

A couple that have already been mentioned are the 'Crazy Frog' phenomenon (which sold a poopload of ringtones), and to some degree 'Harry Potter' (which, well, most of us know what happened with). Although I'm only concerned with, say, post-2000 events, classic examples would include the 'Cabbage Patch Kids' or the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. I am also tangentially interested in examples involving gaming in some fashion, like the story of Desktop Tower Defense.

These examples should help demonstrate that it is possible to build wealth from character development.

I'm sure that there are numerous counter-examples (due to most of these situations being cases of great execution or perfect timing or both), but, while interesting, these are decidedly less useful for my purposes. Additionally, I'm not particularly interested in examples that do not include a character at the root of their success: 'the iPod' would not be an answer I am interested in.

Thanks for your time!

posted by fishfucker to society & culture (23 comments total)

Do those ridiculous Bratz dolls count?
posted by vytae at 8:25 AM on June 27, 2007

Ack, posted too soon. It seems like a lot of children's stuff fits into what you're looking for, as children seem to be very loyal to character brands. Barney, Dora the Explorer, Elmo, etc. I don't know any young children closely, but from what I hear they latch onto these characters and basically force their parents to buy them every tie-in piece of merchandise available.
posted by vytae at 8:28 AM on June 27, 2007

Tickle Me Elmo
posted by macadamiaranch at 8:28 AM on June 27, 2007

Hello Kitty, Trollz
posted by The Deej at 8:28 AM on June 27, 2007

WEBKINZ.
posted by RMD at 8:30 AM on June 27, 2007

My Little Pony, Preemies, Pound Puppies, Tamagotchi, Pokemon
posted by The Deej at 8:32 AM on June 27, 2007

Neopets
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:35 AM on June 27, 2007

Homestar Runner (wikipedia).
posted by mbrubeck at 8:39 AM on June 27, 2007

Not sure if this is quite what you're after but have a look at Last Lemon Productions. They're an IP business that have a few characters (Vimrod and Harold's Planet amongst others) which are used to sell cards/artwork and other branded goods (see the website). The characters are semi-ubiquitous in London/England and are now being rolled out in the US. It's not Crazy Frog-esque, but is a model to look at.
posted by patricio at 8:41 AM on June 27, 2007

I know wrestling was big in the 80s, and so doesn't completely fit your "post-2000 events" criteria, but it seems like it died down for a while and then has experienced a big resurgence lately. They spend a lot of time on the storylines of the wrestling characters and their rivalries, probably more than on the wrestling itself.
posted by vytae at 8:44 AM on June 27, 2007

Ugly Dolls.
posted by drezdn at 9:04 AM on June 27, 2007

Ugly Dolls with link.
posted by drezdn at 9:05 AM on June 27, 2007

How about those Geico cavemen? A successul ad campaign which has spun off into a television show (yes, this fall, a television show with the Geico cavemen)
posted by poppo at 9:10 AM on June 27, 2007

In the UK, the Teletubbies and the ITV Digital knitted monkey (whose popularity continued despite the demise of ITV Digital).
posted by ceri richard at 9:26 AM on June 27, 2007

It seems like a lot of children's stuff fits into what you're looking for, as children seem to be very loyal to character brands.

This is true, and we are specifically interested in examples regarding children's properties, but I don't want to limit it to that (I'm surprised I forgot to mention that in the question) .. I'm sorry I don't have a better explanation of what I'm looking for -- i think the key is the rapid growth. The business in question would not necessary be responsible for production or publishing of the idea, but rather, coming up with the concept and then licensing that to producers/publishers -- this is why the interest is in products whose appeal grows rapidly, possibly 'virally'*.

The Last Lemon Productions is a *great* answer because it appears to give an example of this model in practice, but please, keep the suggestions coming -- all of this is very useful! Thank you!

*ew, yeah, i just said that.
posted by fishfucker at 9:26 AM on June 27, 2007

Oh and Bob the Builder!
posted by ceri richard at 9:29 AM on June 27, 2007

Chorion is one of the biggest pure IP companies in the UK, but its brand portfolio is more literary based (though that doesn't stop it licensing every product under the sun) with things like the Mister Men and Noddy.
posted by patricio at 10:01 AM on June 27, 2007

Thomas Tank Engine
posted by mistsandrain at 10:11 AM on June 27, 2007

The pets.com sock puppet became a bit of a cult sensation, and eventually survived his company's bankruptcy to briefly shill for a completely different company.
posted by Rock Steady at 10:18 AM on June 27, 2007

Actually, the pets.com sock puppet is still going strong, he's now the BarNone sock puppet, pushing car loans for folks with crap credit. I just saw him on TV this morning.

As for examples, the only things I didn't see mentioned already that spring to mind would be Webl and Bob.
posted by pupdog at 10:33 AM on June 27, 2007

Actually, the pets.com sock puppet is still going strong

Huh, I would have said the same thing, but Wikipedia suggests that BarNone stopped the ad campaign in 2005. Wikipedia, wrong?
posted by Rock Steady at 2:24 PM on June 27, 2007

IP? Characters? Boatloads of money?

Disney.

Sorry, don't have a link handy.

/smartass

Seriously, what about Pokemon? Or am I not understanding the question correctly?
posted by ZakDaddy at 6:04 PM on June 27, 2007

Super Mario from Nintendo would be a great example. It's been said that their entire empire is built on his shoulders :)
posted by DMan at 7:22 PM on June 27, 2007