Canadians love mascots. You can tell by the high number of mascots you will come across at any major social event. They are everywhere; at school, at our places of business, during festivals, and even in our homes. Every college has a mascot, and some of them make utterly no sense — no offence if your favorite college mascot is one of them. But no worries, custom mascots can be hard to design especially if your college football team is not likened to a bear, a lion, or a wolf. But college isn’t the only place you are going to find mascots in Canada. Businesses all over the country have adopted the use of mascots to increase the visibility of their brands.

What Do Mascots Mean To A Business?

A mascot or a spokescreature is a creation designed to make people associate the company with it and remember the company’s products or services when they see or think of it. Mascots help give your firm an identity. They are based on objects, animals or popular people and are hard to forget. Mascots actually have an advantage over associating your company with a celebrity, a sports icon, or any other famous individuals.

Your company mascot will never abandon you, die, age, or have a scandal that taints the reputation of your brand. A mascot will never ask for a raise. In contrast, if you do a good job with your custom mascot design you can actually make money off it selling toys and collectibles.

How to Make a Mascot Work for Your Business

Mascot customes — especially business mascots — are not easy to design and not all of them get the job done. Some fail, for some reason. As a businessperson, one thing you have to remember when designing a mascot for your company is that the goal is to help people remember your brand.

Therefore, focus on helping people remember the most important facets of your business i.e. the name of your company, the name of your product, the target market, the benefits of using this particular product, and the relationship between the product and its consumers.

To increase the success of your brand, intertwine jingles, slogans, logos, and names with your mascot design. Strive to make the mascot recognizable and as visually interesting as possible. This way, the mascot will remain in the memories of your target audience for a very long time. To learn more, Hogtown Mascots Inc. has additional resources available for reference.

Being pulled over and handed a speeding ticket not only takes valuable time from a busy schedule, but it also makes any day more stressful. However, speeding citations are fairly common, so if you see the flashing lights of a police cruiser behind you, stay calm. Pull your vehicle over to the side of the road or designated area and wait for the officer to approach the driver’s side window.

Listen carefully.

Before assuming the worst, hear what the police officer has to say. Often, he or she will simply issue a warning and let you go without a citation. The office may point out some important things about the way you were driving that led to the citation, including the speed you were traveling without knowing it. Drivers sometimes miss speed limit signs or fail to adjust their vehicle’s speed when traveling through changing road zones, such as a school zone or business district. This information will help to clarify why a ticket is being issued now as well as prepare you to drive the correct speed in that area for the future.

Speak politely.

If you feel the officer has misinterpreted your driving speed, or if there are extenuating circumstances that should be mentioned, do so politely without raising your voice or criticizing the officer. Avoid jokes or sarcasm. Speak in a matter-of-fact tone. At the very least the officer will likely listen respectfully and perhaps be persuaded by your comments to void the speeding citation. Stick to the truth and facts without exaggeration or falsehoods.

Follow up appropriately.

If you and the officer cannot agree, accept the ticket courteously for the time being. Then after giving it more thought, you can plan an appropriate response. This might mean calling or writing the traffic court to contest the ticket, including a rationale explaining why you feel the ticket is undeserved. You might decide to make a court appearance to argue your side in person. Keep in mind, however, when fighting your speeding ticket that you might not win. Alternately, even if you feel the ticket is unfair, it may be best to pay it, especially if you get speeding tickets on occasion, to avoid collecting a slew of speeding ticket fines.

For many drivers, speeding citations are one of life’s nuisances. However, with careful monitoring of your vehicle’s speed gauge, you may be able to avoid or reduce the number of speed tickets you receive.