 Mascot Flap Were you as surprised as I was when the mascots for the winter Olympics were announced? I guess I was expecting, as most people were, a cuddly single-species replica of either a Kermode bear, or some other mammal. I even hoped it might be a bird. One of the ministers in a TV interview mentioned that a crane could be the mascot but unfortunately he meant the construction crane not the Sandhill Crane. Who would have guessed that instead of the obvious teddy bear we would get the progeny of a genetic mutation experiment into which natural history, folklore and cultural content had been dumped in liberal measure? Oh, and I mustn’t forget the most important ingredient – marketing savvy. I guess that’s where I went wrong in guessing the mascot; I forgot that good marketing never springs a completely alien product on the public. No, it wisely measures the current trends of the world and coat-tails on whatever is currently doing well in sales. To do otherwise would be to court financial disaster and who wants failure marking the beginning of a global marketing campaign. A Kermode bear might seem a familiar and obvious choice to us here in the province but on the shelves of the world it’s just another teddy bear. The local thrift store has plenty of those. The hybrid mascots, on the other hand, due to their lack of complete originality, would fit nicely into the consumer mainstream. After absorbing what I could of the nature of the new mascots I sat back knowing that I would soon be fielding a lot of calls from disgruntled overlooked provincial birds. It wasn’t long before the first phone call came - it was from a Spotted Owl. As I guessed, it had its feathers in a twist. It did a bit of swearing at first but when that had died down the Owl started making some creative sense. Obviously it had absorbed the nature of the thinking behind the new mascots and it began to describe what it would be willing to do to become a bit of local flavor to this event. Spotted Owls, it admitted, have become synonymous with victims. Reduced to only a few in numbers and losing habitat yearly, the image would need some revamping. What the Spotted Owl envisioned was a mascot that was a Rambo-like predator. It would have strong hunched shoulders, sawed off denim pants and wield a roaring chain saw. Bandoliers wrapped about its chest would be filled with saw files and other logging paraphernalia. It would descend from out of the dark woods and threaten anyone who would bar entry to any of the province’s wooded areas. It would take particular interest in woodland caribou habitat where snowmobilers were often threatened with expulsion. The Spotted Owl certainly had a grasp of the matter of being a provincial mascot. As expected, a Stellers Jay called next. It too was miffed at being overlooked as a mascot which seemed reasonable since it had been declared the provincial bird some years back. As it was making its first remarks to me, I was thinking how unlikely a bird with spindly legs would be as a stuffed toy. Seeming to read my thoughts it addressed the nature of its physical challenges immediately. Like the Spotted Owl, if chosen as a mascot, the Steller’s Jay was willing to make changes. No longer would it be a small spindly-legged bird, rather it envisioned itself as a hybrid, a powerful yet cuddly pseudo-animal with certain urban human attributes. It would dress in iridescent blue Kevlar, drink complicated coffee drinks and eat sushi. Not only would it travel about the globe at light speed delivering the message of living in the greatest place on earth but it would make sojourns to nearby planets with that same message. And what about those spindly bird legs? Those would be hidden in mid-calf lace up black leather boots similar to the kind worn by police forces on parade. This too sounded like a winning image. A number of assorted birds phoned after that, birds such as the Varied Thrush and the Bald Eagle but their ideas were quite lackluster and without merit. By the end of the day I thought I’d heard the last but then a Dovekie phoned. What’s a Dovekie you ask? Well, don’t feel embarrassed. I didn’t know what it was either but as it talked in a small voice I flipped through the pages of my bird book to see what it looked like. There was no picture of a Dovekie in my Birds of Western Canada so I hauled out Birds of Canada instead. ‘And what do you have to offer the world of mascots?’ I asked as I flipped through the pages. ‘I’m the same colour as a killer whale – black and white,’ it began. ‘I live on the ocean and I’m very cute.’ Could you be mistaken for a penguin or one of the recently named mascots?’ I asked ‘Yes,’ was the quiet reply. “Are you a west coast bird?” I asked. “No” it said rather abruptly with a hint of aggression, “I’m from the east coast, but if you’re going to be picky, how many inukshuks do you have in British Columbia?’ “Touché!” I replied. “Do you harbour hidden agendas or pent up aggression regarding our environmental policies, I’ve been getting a lot of that today from other wannabe bird mascots?” “No” said the Dovekie. It was just at that moment that I found a picture of the caller on page 189. It was stout, and black and white, with a stubby beak. And, as we all know, stubby beaks translate well into cartoon characters. “You are cute and cuddly!” I shouted. “You’re even cuter and cuddlier than our west coast Marbled Murrelet!” And as we all know the Murrelet is embroiled with the logging of old growth trees and that does not bode well for a Murrelet representing a province that is “moving forward.” “A non-resident bird is free of all the old-growth baggage! You’re cute, cuddly and free of political entanglements! You’re the perfect mascot!” “If it were up to me,” I told the Dovekie “I would champion you as an alternate mascot, a stand-in in case one of the others takes ill, or is found to have skeletons hidden in its closet. But it’s not up to me, nor is it up to any of us mere mortals. What do we residents of the province know about marketing plush mascots? There’s no way they would leave the picking something this important to a democratic process. Think of the anarchy! Thank heaven for corporate think tanks! “I understand” said the Dovekie. “Perhaps in some other Olympics…” “Goodbye for now,” I said, “by the way I didn’t catch your first name.” “It’s Luvvy…Luvvy Dovekie.” I repeated the name and savoured the way the name rolled off my tongue. Then I sadly hung up the phone feeling as though I’d unplugged a great marketing machine before it had half a chance to milk any wallets dry. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
