Baemin Built a Mascot Out of Two Lucky Animals

Korean brands understand something Western ones keep relearning: a character does the work of a media plan. Baemin added a new one on Monday.

The delivery platform, formally Baedal Minjok, unveiled Dochihak — a mascot drawn from the hedgehog and the crane, two animals loaded with good-fortune symbolism — and said it will run across its services, marketing and content rather than sitting in a single campaign.

That last detail is the strategy. Mascots fail when they are treated as advertising talent; they compound when they live in the product, in the app's empty states, in packaging, in the moments a customer is already looking.

It is also a hedge against a category where price and speed are the only differentiators. Coupang can match a delivery window. It cannot borrow a character audiences feel affection for.

The name — playful, compressed, slightly silly — reads as deliberate. Fortune symbolism gives the mark meaning; the joke gives it a reason to be shared.

Kyle Duford, Founder & Editor, BRNDWIRE. More from Kyle →