The best brand characters have strings attached

When you’re shooting with a puppet, you never know what’s going to happen,” puppeteer Oliver Smart warned us at the pre-production meeting for a new campaign.

A few days later, on set, I understood. Between takes, Lucy – a pink spokespuppet we’d created for L&C Mortgages – was improvising, chatting and cracking jokes with the actors as if she were another member of the cast. Yes, the puppeteers were moving her, but Lucy had a personality of her own.

She was the star of the shoot. And we all fell a little bit in love with her.

I think the immediate warmth we felt for Lucy comes from a special blend that only a puppet has; the charm and whimsy of an imaginary character paired with the humanity of the performer behind them. They’re more than an illustration, or even the most convincing 3D animation, because they’re physically present in our world. So although we know they aren’t real, they feel real enough for us to play along.

Puppets are brilliant at being convincing characters.

There’s some interesting psychology behind our willing suspension of disbelief. In a paper published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Stanford psychologists Herbert H. Clark and Kerstin Fischer describe puppets as ‘depictions of social agents’. Their argument is that we recognise the physical object for what it is – a sock puppet, a ventriloquist’s dummy – while simultaneously engaging with the character it represents. We don’t have to believe the puppet is alive to treat it as if it is.

Maybe that’s what makes them such a powerful asset for brands. Puppets are brilliant at being convincing characters – and characters are one of advertising’s best shortcuts to becoming memorable.

Above: The Smash Martians, a classic example of how puppet characters can make even the most everyday products memorable.

Take the Smash Martians – more than 50 years since they first appeared, they’re still fondly remembered as one of Britain’s favourite ads. Then there was Flat Eric. All that little yellow Levi’s puppet had to do was nod along to become as iconic as the trousers he was selling.

PG Tips’ Monkey grew to be as beloved as his human co-star, Johnny Vegas. And more recently, LNER debuted Eleanor – a singing, dancing diva who takes centre stage across just about every brand touchpoint.

What’s brilliant about all these is that they don’t behave like conventional spokespeople. Flat Eric was all vibes. Monkey was one half of a buddy-comedy. Eleanor doesn’t need to explain the freedom of travelling by train – she embodies it. They’re not particularly interested in selling us anything. They’re just getting on with being themselves, which is probably why we like them.

With a puppet, you get a double shot of people power. Because what you’re seeing isn’t just made by humans, but moved by humans.

Puppets give audiences something to recognise and – importantly – something to remember. And once you know them, you don’t need to be introduced every time. You see the face, the silhouette or the funny little walk and you know what you’re looking at before they’ve said a word.

And there’s another reason puppets feel particularly relevant now.

At a time when almost any environment, effect or creature can now be prompted into polished perfection, something physical and a little bit unpredictable feels refreshing. Visible seams, rods and the occasional reminder there’s a human crouching under a table making it move aren’t flaws to be hidden, they’re worth embracing.

Research into AI-generated advertising offers a related insight. A 2024 study found that audiences responded more positively to human-created ads than AI-generated ones when the ads used appeals centred on human connection and relationships.

With a puppet, you get a double shot of people power. Because what you’re seeing isn’t just made by humans, but moved by humans.