Meanwhile, the mills at General Mills are currently turning over the question of how, exactly, the beleaguered Trix rabbit should react when he is denied the Trix at the end of the commercial. "He really wants that product," says Postlewaite. "He'll sneak around in bushes, he'll wear disguises, he'll put on roller blades -- he'll do whatever it takes to get the product." Frenzied rounds of research have failed to solve the problem of just how despondent the rabbit should be when he is reminded that Trix is for kids. "When he doesn't get the product, he sighs a little sigh," says Postlewaite. "You walk a line with that sigh, because you don't want your lead character to seem super-sad. I mean, this isn't Hamlet's soliloquy."

To revivify their fuzzy, nondescript icons, some companies are turning to brand therapists such as David Altschul, president of the advertising division at Portland's Will Vinton Studios. As head of the studio's Character Development Lab, a sort of rehab center for shopworn spokescharacters (the lab creates new characters as well), Altschul "interrogates" and "dimensionalizes" played-out spokescharacters until they throb with rich new life. Altchul's specialized interventions are as complex as that of a real-life medical unit: Having resuscitated the M&M characters and the California Raisins, among others, he is now turning his sights to the Doughboy. "He's one of the most effective icons out there," Altschul tells me. "But he's a generic icon, a generic icon made out of dough. His chief value is as a mnemonic device ... What [Pillsbury] is leaving on the table is an opportunity for the Doughboy to have a more emotional connection with the consumer."

When Altschul begins his signature brand of icon therapy, he begins by focusing on the negative. "We're not in the business of developing virtues," he says. "Virtues are all too easy to come by." Not in humans, but in talking dogs, frogs, tigers and toucans. "When you look at these guidelines, they all read the same," Altschul says. "They're virtually interchangeable. The character is inevitably described as charming, friendly, helpful, optimistic and universally loved by all. Very occasionally, they're described as a little bit mischievous. That's the closest anyone comes to describing a flaw. Now, these types of guidelines are enormously engaging to the brand managers. They're not terribly engaging to the consumer."

A key part of his job, Altschul concedes, is managing the distress of the traumatized brand managers. Like frightened and overindulgent parents who have difficulty refusing their child anything, they are loathe to believe their tiny charges could ever be the least bit cocky, sardonic, piggish or mean-spirited. "They've put their brand icon on a pedestal," Altschul complains. "They're afraid to touch him."

Altschul remains hopeful that someday he'll have the chance to mold the Doughboy in his own image. "I'm not talking about a major makeover," he says eagerly. "The Doughboy is not ripe to become mean-spirited, like the red M&M, or dopey, like the yellow M&M. But there are some subtle things you could do that would make him more of an individual character. Not just a generic icon made out of dough." Altschul is growing excited. "The first thing I would do," he says, "is say to the folks at Pillsbury: If you want us to deal with this character, we are going to take this character guidelines book and trash it."

Informed of Altschul's well-meaning offer, poor Dennis Ready of Pillsbury almost has a coronary. "Oh no," he says. "No, no, no. We are not going to trash the guidelines. We take the property very seriously. His personality. His role in advertising. Things he can do. Things he can't do. The physical Doughboy. It's all described in excruciating detail. I've made presentations on him ... We've got a bible that's hundreds of pages. And so we pretty much have that codified."

As for Altschul's offer to help Pillsbury get in touch with the Doughboy's dark side, Ready says thanks but no thanks. "There are certain other characters who come to mind," he says, his voice hardening slightly around the edges. "One is the Trix rabbit. He's always trying to pull tricks to get the Trix. My point to you is, the Doughboy does not engage in things like that. He could never be cast in a role where he was pulling tricks, or being mean or sarcastic to somebody. He's always warm and sweet and enthusiastic and helpful. It's in his personality. It's in his character." Ready pauses. "I could go on and on," he says dreamily.

Recent Stories