Character Reference

The Pillsbury company is no doubt very fond of its adorable Poppin' Fresh doughboy mascot, so too the public. The character not only inspires feelings of affection, with that endearing little giggle and cuddly appearance, it encourages brand loyalty. We know we're safe with Pillsbury's products, we certainly trust the doughboy (how could you not?) and this comfortable feeling of reliability and warmth is exactly what the company wants to stir in its consumers. And it does this perfectly and has been doing so since the mid 1960s. Of course Pillsbury is not the only company to use a mascot for the purposes of character branding. Think Tony the Tiger, Ronald McDonald, the Jolly Green Giant and the Michelin Man - all are examples of successful brand imaging. But McDonald's Ronald and his associates are pure invention. In other cases the brand character is one based on reality. Take the friendly face of KFC, Colonel Sanders, for example. No invention here, he was the actual founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken company, Harland David Sanders. By contrast, the UK's Aunt Bessie brand of roast food products uses a fictional character but one that nevertheless chimes in with our idea of the sort of person who would be a fine aunt and a dab hand at good home cooking. That's why we trust the Bessie products and identify them as dependable.

A powerful 'mascot' or character brand marketing campaign can:

Generate publicity and new interest in a company and its products or services.
Engender feelings of goodwill and even affection.
Allow the company to express itself through the mascot's voice and attitudes.
Present associative identification opportunities in the retail world with merchandizing - enhanced point-of-sale potential
Grow a company's potential client bank. Character mascots usually appeal to a fairly wide audience, from children to adults alike.

From a commercial viewpoint it doesn't seem to matter whether the icon is drawn from real life or purely invented. And with mascots that are clearly 'human' like Colonel Sanders and Aunt Bessie, it's hard to say which is factual and which is fictional. Both are equally successful, irrespective of their origins.

Talking tigers, drumming bunnies and happy green men of nephilim proportions, obviously, are the birth things of imaginative ad men and women. Again, whether we like them or not, the brand's image is so strong as a result of them that we know immediately we see them respectively that we're with Frosties, Energizer and Green Giant.

Often it's the larger corporations we associate character branding with, although there is great scope for smaller businesses to embrace elements of a character branding campaign. While this may not necessarily extend to animation of the icon or television advertising, in which the character brand really excels, there's much to said for having a character logo to use in print media or packaging. It's certainly an aspect that can be put to great use in the online environment. Making a character mascot a main feature of a business website creates interest and recognition. And it opens up opportunities to incorporate games or activities that involve the character and the visitor.

Emotional response in the consumer is what a character mascot is designed to create - think of the Pillsbury Doughboy and you'll think 'ah'. On a more analytical psychological note, character mascots are often devised to attract the attention of children. Although kids don't entirely control the purse strings they do have an impact on their parent's purchasing behaviors. If a mascot makes a product a 'must have' in the eyes of the child, then it has done its work. Win the hearts and minds of children and the adult consumer is yours.

Designers given the task of creating character brand icons or mascots on behalf of companies often ask a series of questions in order to build a picture that they can work from.

Is the character to be male or female, or androgynous?
Will the character be recognizable as human?
What are the five main character traits of the character?
Where does it or he or she live, if anywhere?
What is the character's main purpose?

Some writers of fiction often say that they create every possible detail of their invented character's lives prior to writing the story around them. Most of those details are never used and certainly never revealed to the reader of the resultant story. But they provide a point of reference for the writer and consequently the character comes across as more well-rounded and believable. It is much the same with the designing of a brand character. However outlandish the mascot may be it needs to be rooted in some truth or at least have rules it adheres to - even if that truth is invented by designers!

Another technique that is used when conceptualizing is that of envisioning the character in different 'life' situations. As an exercise this allows the designer to see and feel how the character would react and therefore build a deeper understanding of its personality. Again, there may never be call to actually put the character into these situations when representing the company but it serves to give the design team a clearer idea of what the character is about.

In some cases company mascots are afforded a sidekick, and this works well as a way to revamp a company's image. While mascots that have been a round since the dawn of time engender feelings of comfort in an audience, there's a risk of stagnation. Introducing new characters into the company icon's world can have the effect of livening things up and placing new emphasis on the company's image. The Jolly Green Giant, for example, was given a little helper in 1973. Known as Little Green Sprout, his job was to help the giant with the growing of the vegetables in the valley.

But why stick to one character, or even one with a little sidekick, when three can be had? Snap, Crackle and Pop, the elves who have been the mascots for Rice Krispies since 1928 are amongst the most famous in the world. Because there are three of them, this allows for lively interaction between them.

Where camaraderie alone, as in the case of the three aforementioned elves, won't do then adversaries are sometimes called in to create interest. Ronald McDonald is often required to thwart the evil Hamburglar, giving the whole McDonalds character branding campaign a storyline and an 'it's behind you' pantomime feel. In Ronald's world there are many other characters to interact with.

Ronald McDonald Birdie the Early Bird The Hamburglar Grimace Iam Hungry CosMc Fry Kids King Gonga Mayor McCheese Uncle O'Grimacey

Although character branding has been around for a long time, the technological age we live in, which is ever-advancing, takes the concept to a new level. Some mascots actually have their own Facebook and MySpace pages creating further elements of consumer engagement, brand recognition and familiarity.

Previously it was believed that more serious products or companies would not benefit from mascots or icons, however a casual and quirky approach has stood many in good stead. Although insurance is considered a more serious subject or product than say cereals that make a noise or hamburgers, that didn't stop the UK's Churchil Insurance Company using a jowly-looking bulldog as a mascot, and with much success. It's believed that the dog, named Winston, was based on Winston Churchill the Prime Minister who was known as The British Bulldog during the Second World War. Devised to given an impression of dependability, the Winston dog is very much a part of the UK's collective consciousness - good news for the company. This particular mascot proves that serious subject matter can be combined with a supposedly frivolous icon, provided that the icon portrays an underlying feeling of reliability and endurance. Clever stuff.

The neighborhood of corporate mascots is a crowded and bizarre one but there's always room for new kids on the block.

Dennis Moore is Vice President of Little Jimmy's Italian Ice

Moore recently took the idea of expanding his company's Little Jimmy logo to a UK based design team who agreed that he had great possibilities. Previously seen only as a portrait style image, the reworked Jimmy now has a body, a new wardrobe and a greater identity. Jimmy has been representing the company for over 75 years.

For more information about Little Jimmy's Italian Ice, and to see the revamped Jimmy, visit the website now.

Chinese characters seem the most difficult part for foreign friends to learn the Chinese language. In my opinion, the main reason for that may be Chinese characters look very different from their quarter parts in the Roman languages: each character represents not only the pronunciation, but a certain meaning. Many a complaint comes from that Chinese characters are so unlike each other that you have to learn them one by one, and there are so many to memory, and that when encountering a new character, the previous knowledge of other ones helps little, you can neither pronounce it directly nor guess what it means. Actually, there really are some connections between Chinese characters, all composed in a defined way. You are unable to discover that probably because the numbers of the characters you know are too limited, or you didn't learn them in the Chinese perspective.

Chinese characters are the writing system to record the Chinese language. With a history as long as 8,000 years at least, it's perhaps the oldest surviving writing system in the world. An old Chinese legend said that Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie, a historian official under the legendary emperor, Huangdi in 2600 BC. Obviously, the fable cannot possibly be true, for the creation of a great writing system made of so many characters are such a huge project, too huge to be one single person's accomplishment. But perhaps Cangjie really made some contributions in the existing Chinese writing system: instead of the inventor, he might be a collector and collator of scattered Chinese characters in ancient China. Thanks to many a contributor like Cangjie and the common people using and spreading characters, a complete well-developed writing system had finally come to birth. The indisputably evidence is Chinese character inscriptions found on turtle shells dating back to the Shang dynasty (1766-1123 BC), formally called Oracle bone script. Of the 4,600 known Oracle bone logographs, about 1,000 can be identified with later Chinese characters, and the other unidentifiable ones are mostly the names of people, places or clans.

In view of formation, written Chinese is a script of ideograms. Xu Shen, in the Eastern Han Dynasty (121 AD), was a distinguished scholar who had attained unparalleled fame for his etymological dictionary entitled Shuo Wen Jie Zi, whose literal meaning is "explaining written language and parsing words". In Shuo wen, Chinese characters are classified into six categories, namely pictogram, ideograph, logical aggregates, pictophonetic compounds, borrowing and associate transformation. However, the last twos are often omitted, for the characters of these categories have been created before but somehow borrowed to represent another meaning, or detached into separate words. Generally, Chinese characters fall into four categories in view of their origin.

Pictograms (Xiang4 xing2 zi4)
Pictograms are the earliest characters to create, and they usually reflect the shape of physical objects. Examples include the sun, the moon, a woman, fire. From this picture-drawing method, the other character forming principles were subsequently developed. Over a long history, pictograms have evolved from irregular drawing into a definite form, most simplified by losing certain strokes to make ease of writing. Therefore, to see the actual picture of what it represents, you must have a lot of imagination as well as knowledge of the origin of the character and its evolution. However, only a very small portion of Chinese characters falls into this category, not more than 5 percent.

Ideograph (Zhi3 shi4 zi4)
Also called a simple indicative, Ideograph usually describes an abstract concept. It's a combination of indicators, or adds an indicator to a pictograph. For example, a short horizontal bar on top of a circular arc represents an idea of up or on top of. Another example: placing an indicative horizontal bar at the lower part of a pictogram for wood, makes an ideograph for "root". Like pictograms, the number of this category is also small, less than 2 percent.

Logical aggregates (Hui4 yi4 zi1)
It is a combination of pictograms to represent a meaning, rather like telling a little story. A pictograph for person on the left with a pictogram for wood on the right makes a aggregate for "rest". This story-telling formation is relatively easier to learn, yet most of aggregates have been reformed into phonetic compounds, or just replaced by them.

Pictophonetic compounds (Xing2 sheng1 zi4)
Also called semantic-phonetic compounds, just as the name implies, it combines a semantic element with a phonetic element, taking the meaning from one and the phonetics from the other. For instance, the character for ocean with a pronunciation of yang2 is a combination of a semantic classifier which means "water" with the phonetic component yang2, referring to goat or sheep on its own. This last group of characters is the largest in modern Chinese, making up around 90% of all Chinese characters.
The superiority of phonetic-compounds over the first three categories lies in its unique phonetic components, for many an object and concept are hard to express through photographs or ideograms, and its association with the character pronunciation helps Chinese vocabulary extends much faster than logical aggregates. Therefore, most newly created characters take this more scientific formation approach.
However, over the centuries evolution, the Chinese language has undertaken such a great change, that most pictophonetic compounds don't pronounce as its phonetic elements any longer, and the semantic components appear even not relevant to its current meaning. Only when knowing the origin and evolution of the character, you can understand its formation. For example, the phonetic-compound for cargo or goods takes the character for shell as the semantic element, and that's because shells used to be a medium of exchange in ancient China, like the currency.

I do hope the above information can be of some help in your study of Chinese characters. Please tell me what you think about it, so I could be a better help in the future writing. Thank you!

References are an important part of the job hiring process. If the interviewer starts contacting your references it usually means they are considering you for the short list or even the job. That is why it is so important that you know what your references are going to say about you. You cannot just assume that they will give you a good review.

You should never use a person as a reference unless you first get permission. If a person is willing to be your reference, then ask him/her what his/her views are of you and your work history. You may think that there were no problems at your last place of work but your former supervisor or boss might be of a different mindset. Remember, you do not have to use this person as a reference if they give you less than a glowing endorsement.

The first step in selecting your reference is to make a list of suitable people. After you have selected these people, contact them and see if they are willing to be a reference. You must make sure that their contact information has not changed. Are they still working for the same company? Do they have the same contact number? If a person has moved on to another company, you may still use him/her for a reference as long as you can locate this person and ask his/her permission.

You must not assume that a person will remember you or the work you did for them and it is okay to remind them. Ask them if they are comfortable providing you with a favourable reference and if there is any feedback they have for you. If you are comfortable talking to this person you can flat out ask how they felt about your time working with them and what they would say about you if someone called to ask. If, however, you do not know this person very well, it might be better not to be so forward.

You do not need to provide a former supervisor or boss as a reference. You are free to use other employees who hold a supervisory position. Don't forget the people you have worked with on projects. They are also well suited to serve as references. If you are applying for your first job and you have no references, you will have to settle for personal references. These should be non-family members who can vouch for your good character.

Getting a job is never easy and you should be fully prepared with a quality resume, good references and knowledge of how to give a great interview. Learn how you can put all these together at http://www.seeking-employment.com.

When it comes to screening candidates for the right nanny or babysitter, you need more than an applicant's credentials to make the right decision. You also need to know more about the candidate's character and her attitude towards work. A lot of babysitters and nannies come with degrees in child development and have even gone through a lot of specialized nanny training. But there are only a few of them who can really practice what they have learned and those who are truly adept at handling children and catering to their needs.

Learning more about a candidate's character

The only way to find out how a nanny or babysitter would perform given the set of responsibilities that you present is by finding out how she coped in previous jobs. This is why character references are important. You can, of course, ask the applicant what she thought of her previous jobs and the things that she liked or disliked about them.

But it is also a good idea to look into the other side of the coin and find out what her previous employers, clients and colleagues have thought about her performance. Contacting character references will help you know more about the candidate's personality and whether or not she has the right disposition to handle the challenge that you have in store.

Types of character references

Most of the seasoned babysitters and nannies are more than ready to furnish their prospective employers with a list of character references. If the applicant does not volunteer this information, you have the right to ask for it. Candidates who take offense on this request might not be suitable for the job at all.

References can be previous employers, a supervisor, professor or anyone who can vouch for the applicant's character and work ethic. You will want to get references to her last two employers. It's also important to get the dates when the candidate has worked for them. In case you notice a substantial gap in the dates, you want to find out why this is so. It would also be a good idea to ask her about the gap and why she chose to leave each employer (or why she was let go).

What to ask the references

You need to take the time to contact the candidate's references, particularly her previous employers. Here are some of the many questions that you may want to ask each individual. 1. How long has the candidate been working for you? 2. Is she still taking care of your kids? 3. How old were your children when you employed the candidate's services? 4. How many hours did she work and what was her schedule if it was a regular arrangement? 5. What were the caregiver's weaknesses from your perspective? 6. How did she interact with your children? 7. What types of activities did she do with your kids? 8. Did she ever encounter emergencies while taking care of the children? How did she handle them? 9. How was the candidate compared with all other babysitters that they might have had?

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One of the most common forms of background check performed by companies hiring new employees is the reference check. They typically request that candidates provide them with three names of previous bosses. If you don't have three former bosses, then provide co-workers, teachers, college professors and/or professional colleagues as character references.

The first thing you should do is develop your list of potential references and then contact each one. Explain that you're applying for a job, describe the type of work and the company, and ask if they would feel comfortable giving you a good recommendation. If they have any hesitation, do not include them as a reference. You goal is to have three strong references who can help you land the job.

Be sure to verify their contact information.

Don't list these references on your resume, but have them handy during an interview. Put the names, titles, phone numbers, mailing addresses andemail addresses of your references on a single sheet of paper and take it to your interview.

After the interview, if this seems like a job you'd enjoy, go ahead and hand them this list of references along with any other "leave-behind" materials that are appropriate, such as a portfolio with samples of your work (this depends on the type of job, of course).

Here's a step most people forget -- after you land the job, contact your references, tell them what happened, and thank them for their help!

Bonnie Lowe is author of the popular Job Interview Success System and free information-packed ezine, "Career-Life Times." Find those and other powerful career-building resources and tips at her website: http://www.best-interview-strategies.com.

Have you ever been asked to write a letter of reference for a co-worker, employee or former employee? Generally, a letter of reference is used to help obtain employment, apply for higher education, or as a character reference for those seeking a government position. This is an important request, as a well-written letter can be the reason the candidate receives the offer he or she is hoping for.
In all likelihood, you won't be asked to write a letter of reference for someone you don't know or get along with very well. But, if you have any doubts about writing a recommendation for this person, you should decline the offer and suggest they ask another person. Only write a letter for someone whom you would truly recommend.
A letter of reference doesn't need to be long and wordy. In the first few sentences, explain how you know this person (co-worker, neighbor, business acquaintance) and for how long. Mention any shared any experiences such as coaching the same basketball team, singing in the church choir or working on a project together at the office.
Think of two or three major character traits to describe this person that would be pertinent to the reason you are writing the reference. Are they honest and dependable? Do they always finish what they start? While Mike may be the best guitar player you know and can recite lyrics from songs written twenty years ago, chances are these are not reasons he'll get that job offer. Think of what you would say if you were asked to make a toast to this person during a special occasion.
A short anecdote describing how this person handled a difficult situation will make your letter stand out from the rest. Think of an incident that made you see this person in a new light. Finally, add a short statement that draws the letter to a close.
Here's a sample letter of reference.
To Whom It May Concern:
I am pleased to write this Letter of Reference for Mike Smith. I have lived next door to Mike for ten years, and we both have served on the XYZ Neighborhood Watch Committee for the past three years.
Mike is a pleasure to work with on this committee. His drive and determination to make our neighborhood a safer place was the catalyst in getting our local government to install a traffic light at a busy intersection in our community. Once, during a power outage in rush hour, and risking life and limb, Mike took the initiative to direct traffic himself rather than risk an accident at this intersection.
Mike's perseverance and genuine concern for his fellow citizen are perfect examples of why it is my privilege to recommend him for a position with your company. I feel confident he will be an asset to your organization and will add to your continued success.
Kathy Swann has worked as the Human Resource Manager for a consulting company in Baltimore. She freelances as a bookkeeper for several clients and is the author of "How to Win When You Lose Your Job: A Handbook for Those Soon to Be Unemployed" now available at http://www.loseyourjob.net