One proven way to boost brand affinity is to create a brand character or if you want to sound fancy a “fluent device.” Basically, it’s a way to personify the brand and get the message across in a fun way. Think about all your favorite old school cereal mascots, the Marlboro Man, Mr. Peanut, Chester Cheetah, the GEICO Caveman, the AFLAC duck, and on and on and on. When we were looking for a way to quickly engage the Shangri-La audience on social media, we thought a brand character was a perfect solution. Enter Shangi-Sherpa. With a little help from Midjourney’s AI image tools, we created the Sherpa as a guide to the culture and lore of cannabis and a champion of all that cannabis can do to enhance life experiences, the Shangi-Sherpa was a fun and funny way to get people engaged with the brand on social. He blew up (in a good way) with engagement and interactions on his posts being consistently the most popular posts Shangri-La has. It was a huge help to our social accounts to have engaging content that had nothing to do with sales or promotions, and we think it’s a huge part of why Shangri-La’s social has been a success. And it was just plain fun to come up with this stuff.
