Marketers generally use verbal claims in their campaigns to highlight their brand benefits. Of late, spokes characters are increasingly being used in advertisements and product packages. Originally created for the purpose of identification of the brands, spokes characters have, today, become another face of the brands symbolically conveying a brand attribute or belief. The use of spokes characters benefits the brands by establishing the brand identity and creating favorable brand associations.

The use of spokes characters or animated characters created for specific brands is becoming a popular practice in Indian advertising of late. Fido, the cool swanky doodle that endorsed 7Up, Pillsbury's doughboy, Asian Paint's Gattu, ICICI's Chintamani, Air India's Maharajah, Sunfeast's Sunny and the Amul girl, all these animated characters have a strong connect with many of us. Customers always want something innovative and it is a challenge for marketers to convey a message and relate it to the brand. Using creative or animated characters helps to project a brand and position it in the customer's mind.

According to Callcott and Phillips (1996), "The spokes character, at its most basic, is defined as a fictional persona employed to sell a product or service." There are three ways in which advertising using spokes characters reaches its target: by providing brand identification, brand personification and brand continuity. The spokes characters help to easily differentiate the brand. We can identify the popularity of spokes characters under four dimensions: Personality, Physical Characteristics, Humor and Consumer experience factor.

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