Good morning. Crocs is introducing its first full-fledged advertising mascot, a six-foot crocodile named Niles, the WSJ Leadership Institute's Patrick Coffee reports.
The company wants Niles to boost sales and cachet by embodying the casual vibe associated with its slip-on shoes. "He's the personification of everything that the brand values," said Chief Marketing Officer Carly Gomez.
Contemporary mascots like Duolingo's Duo and Liberty Mutual's LiMu Emu have been making themselves familiar for years. But Niles is just one in a new wave of nonhuman brand mascots from recent months that also includes:
-- Liberty Biberty, a big-eyed, yellow ball of fuzz promoting Liberty Mutual insurance
-- Stan, a "no-nonsense" talking toolbox from Stanley Black & Decker
-- Leon, a helpful yeti avatar for the information-technology firm Infosys; and
-- "Little Finder Guy," as fans dubbed a character representing Apple's two-tone Finder logo.
I asked Patrick what's driving the mascot boom.
Mascots go back a long way, as you point out in your story. What's new about this batch?
Patrick: What stands out to me is the number of brands doing this in very different industries, including some that aren't what I'd call "mascot friendly." The most likely categories to use mascots are food, insurance, grocery and retail, according to System1, a firm that predicts how ads will perform.
So it's not that surprising that Liberty Mutual added another character to a portfolio that already includes the LiMu Emu and Doug.
But there haven't been that many footwear mascots of note before Niles. New Balance's "Newbie" may show us one reason why.
I found Infosys most interesting because, to my knowledge, there are no other IT or consulting firms with creature mascots like Leon the yeti. They're all about assertive fonts and logos and taglines, because they want to convey seriousness and reliability. But Infosys's CMO told me that doesn't cut it in the current market, when everyone has AI-fueled features they could rattle off.
It's also somehow appropriate that AI-driven business pressures inspired this mascot, who has been described as "giving enterprise AI a more human face" even though he himself is partly AI-generated. And a yeti.
Your piece highlights several reasons mascots appeal to brands. Why is Crocs also still working with celebrities, like its recent ambassador Pete Davidson?
Patrick: Particularly if you want to be a global brand, you have to show up almost everywhere in as many formats, channels and languages as possible while still sticking to your singular brand ethos. Crocs thinks Niles' silent, playful charm will be helpful in international markets like India and China.
But the Venn diagram of people who will love Niles the crocodile and those who care what shoes Pete Davidson wears isn't a circle. The Crocs marketing team wants to make sure every potential customer has an entry point to the brand.
Bottle Service
Katie Deighton writes for the WSJ Leadership Institute:
Stacey Andrade-Wells, chief marketing officer of Unilever's hydration brand Liquid IV until earlier this month, has resurfaced at the baby formula brand Bobbie. She joined the Heath, Ohio-headquartered company as its first chief growth officer after four years at Liquid IV, which she took to the Super Bowl's advertising palooza for the first time.
Bobbie, which markets itself as an organic, European-style brand of formula, is seeking its next chapter of growth in a category that for years was dominated by conglomerate-backed players such as Abbott Laboratories' Similac and Reckitt-owned Enfamil.
Bobbie's co-founder and CEO Laura Modi, an Airbnb alum and mother of four, started the brand in 2018 and gained clearance to enter the direct-to-consumer U.S. market from the Food and Drug Administration in 2021. The brand since then has inked retail deals with the likes of Whole Foods and Target, and seen annual sales grow to more than $150 million in 2025, according to the company. In 2023, it closed a $70 million series C round to acquire pediatric nutrition company Nature's One.
Bobbie now has its sights set on expanding beyond formula to become a broader brand for new parents, said Andrade-Wells, who reports to Modi.
Andrade-Wells said the company plans to expand and foster its online parenthood community and resources, which provide services like free feeding consultations and "a lot of education about that zero-to-one first year."
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