the features of iranian advertising character creation

advertising characters and commercial mascots such as yum yum,  cheetoz monkey, safety-man and many others have made memories of different generations of iranian consumers for many years. they have many abilities to attract attention and create a nostalgic and friendly relationship with the consumer and have a great impact on the sales of products. through a review of the relevant literature, this paper will determine the definition of the role and function of commercial mascots and outline character-driven advertising pros and cons and extend the stream of literature with principles and criteria that will help advertisers in the creation of advertising character in accordance with the historical, religious and cultural differences of audiences and will be able advertising agency to create lasting and efficient mascots. this research has been done by descriptive-analytical methods and the content analysis of character-driven commercials and by viewing documents and sources and interpretation of the issue is dealt with. during researching was determined a promotional character is symbolic and cultural image, so it should reinforce visual symbols and stereotypical behaviors according to the values, tastes and culture of the audience, so the audience could decode message and understand implied concepts of ad character properly and receive the desired message. on the other hand, this paper also briefly document ad characters can appeared in human, animal, mythical and product personifications forms and different types of advertising character will be more successful for various promotional purposes. the animal mascots can symbolize product attributes and express common hopes, aspirations and ideals because they are standard mythical symbols of human qualities. for example, everyone knows that a dove is peaceful, while human and mythical characters build consumer identification so about human and mythical character, the cultural and identity fit and congruence between trade character and consumer culture and values is important so according to iranian cultural areas, it is necessary to consider the identity of the ad character in form, conceptual and behavioral activation to partly reduce the amount of imported and incongruous mascots with iranian culture and help the audience to accept and understand desired and implied meanings and the behavioral stereotypes of character in the character-driven commercials and advertisings. the results showed that necessarily apparent compatible between mascot and product like choosing an image like cattle for dairy products is not effective in remembering brand by consumer but to create a feeling or story about ad character in continuous, frequent and consistent advertising can be effective in succeeding. such research is necessary in this regard of the lack of persian sources, low and sparse latin resources, continuous and broad use of these advertising elements and because interest in these character has evolved over time in iran and because most of ads owners deemed ad characters as promotional elements in place for inappropriate and ineffective elements which are more suitable for inexpensive and childish products than for adult and serious ones.