The antihero character!

A hero is a character, that convension (whoever that is…) has desided has qualities like courage, strength, idealism, morality etc.

An antihero is of course the opposite, ie. a character that lacks the normal heroic traits and is known for being unable, mediocre, weak, ridiculous etc. In other words the antihero is much more human. And in a way more real.

Examples of antiheros in film and literature and real life could be:

The overweight panda Po from the animation film Kung Fu Panda. Po is chosen to be master of Kung fu despite his obvius physical challenges – and seemingly un-coolness.

Or perhaps this guy – who is highly antiheroic in many of the parts that he is playing:

Or a character that all danes know: Gummi-Tarzan, who is bullied by stronger kids and also by his father for being a wimp.

In a brand mascot context, there are numeruos brand characters with overwhelmingly positive hero-like qualities:

 

But there are also brand characters who get famous for being antiheroic. Take for example the former brand character for the danish railroad company DSB, called Harry:

Harry is clumsy, stupid and since he is very much in love with his old car, and against travelling in trains, he is the ironic contrast to the customers in DSB trains. Harry appeared in DSB adds for eleven years and was a great succes for DSB. Harry managed to change people’s attitude towards the company which was a great achievement.

Another example of an anti-hero character representing a brand is Aleksandr Orlov. Aleksandr is a russian meerkat – he runs the website Compare the Meerkat and is very annoyed by people who mistakedly find his website instead of the website ‘compare the market’ where you can compare car insurances. Which is the real sender of the Aleksandr Orlov campaign.

Aleksandr is an aristocrat, he is interested in literature, has a strong russian accent and is a bit of a snob. He is surrounded by a set of characters for example his emplyee Vassily. You can meet Aleksandr online since he is both tweeting and has a facebook profile.

Like Harry, Aleksandr is not designed to be likable, positive and friendly, but is a succes because he is comical, an exagerated charicature and the whole campaign is an ironic approach to the general problem people have when spelling URL’s.