Match them, boost sales.
If
S = 0.7+
Target audience's
psychometrics
Fictional Character's perceived psychometrics
Perceived Similarity Index
(0 ↔ 1)
Then
Match &
Advertise
To generate a potential of
8/ 10
Target audience consuming the series with that character
7 to 8/ 10
Fans & Cosplayers buying additional merchandise of
that character
up to 10%
Target audience buying character products through Cosplayer-Influencers
And the endless potential for:
Identification
Bringing more people to produce fanmade arts and other works, or to cosplay that character they identified with...
​
... granting that character more awareness and reaching for a wider audience, letting the process start again by its own.
So... did you know?
When we perceive similarity and/or identify with a fictional character, there’s an 87.5% chance that we will consume its related series, game, comic, or anything else related to that character (e.g., merchandising).
By advertising the right characters to the matching targets, and by managing a fan & cosplayer-oriented social media management, it would be possible to drastically increase characters’ goods sales & awareness, while setting it up as a self-feeding process.
How do you do that?
Formulae about per-trait and overall perceived similarty index calculation between target audience and fictional character (Guarisco, 2022). I've already coded them in Excel: contact me to try out a simulation.
Surveyed audience interest in fanmade products and cosplayers of a character they perceived as similar. A large part of them (40.6%) look for both by themselves (Guarisco, 2022).
Surveyed fans and cosplayers about them sharing their work of a character they perceived as similar to the public. A large part of fans (40%) share fanmade works publicly, while most of the cosplayers (77.8%) share their pictures and videos publicly (Guarisco, 2022).
To set up a fictional character-based marketing and communication management system like this, you would need to measure 3 basic things:
​
-
The fictional character's personality traits, as clear as from their author(s) perspective.
-
The fictional character's personality traits, as perceived from their potential audience.
-
The potential audience's traits.
If there's a similarity match between at least 2 of these 3 variables, you can unlock all of the potential benefits I've just described above.
Awarded with
Honor Mention
When graduating with 110/110 cum laude
@Università degli Studi di Palermo (2022)
When we perceive similarity with a fictional character, we also tend to improve ourselves to reach for the idealized self we crave but observe in that character. Indeed, it's not just about benefits for the industry. Just think about all the life-changing books, comics, TV series, or videogames we played and grew up with.
​
That's how we get some of our greatest inspirations; and that's how we are driven towards knowing those characters more by consuming the series they're featuring in, buying their merchandise to showcase our affinity with them, up to even producing fanmade content or making cosplays to affirm our strong identification in them.
​
And after this happens, even more Character Awareness comes to be spread by fans and cosplayers, bringing it to a much wider audience (in other terms: free advertising), with potentially similar interests to the people who shared those works - thanks to how social media algorythms work.
​
And that's how it becomes a process that loops itself, with minimal needs for Ads re-investments in the long term.
Contact me
and try out a
simulation.
We will simulate the Perceived Similarity index calculation, matching strategy, and Advertising budget distribution depending on the matching score.
Meantime, feel free to
read the full research.
More about Character Management
It's basically my dream job :)
Character Management is the product of 4 long years of theoretical and practical research, within my neverending eagerness of merging my passions with my educational and professional experience, from science to arts.
​
By combining marketing, advertising, psychology, and cosplaying, I could set up a system to make those characters that I love to be known and inspire much more people, just as they did for me.
My first research seminar & workshop at Palermo Comic Convention (2019), teaching and experimenting the first results of Character Management. This event marked the first ever official collaboration between my hometown's University and its biggest Comic Convention event.
My first research seminar & workshop at Palermo Comic Convention (2019), teaching and experimenting the first results of Character Management. This event marked the first ever official collaboration between my hometown's University and its biggest Comic Convention event.
Wanna try out a Character Management simulation?
Let's have a virtual coffee together:
Manfredi Guarisco
Marketing Manager,
Cognitive Psychologist,
sometimes Cosplayer.