What happens when advertising's most beloved characters clock off?

As the creative application of AI changes what's possible on smaller budgets, it's worth peeking behind the curtain at advertising's most iconic characters. System1's research keeps reminding us that creative consistency is more vital than ever for building lasting memory with audiences. Add the current surge of nostalgia-driven engagement, and an intriguing opportunity opens up. Could fluent devices, the recurring characters that carry a brand's distinctiveness across years of advertising, evolve to inhabit richer, more entertaining worlds? The answer is yes, and here's why.

With tools like Google's Veo, OpenAI's Sora and Runway pushing the boundaries of animation and storytelling, we might finally get to answer the question everyone secretly wants answered. What do these characters do when the cameras stop rolling? Here's where I would take three of them.

The Hoffmeister Bear: after hours

The smoothest bear in advertising hasn't lost his touch since the 90s. These days he runs an underground jazz club in Shoreditch called The Den, where he occasionally takes to the piano himself. His Instagram is a masterclass in effortless cool: dim lighting, perfectly crafted cocktails, vintage leather jackets. He's become a mentor to younger bears in the entertainment industry, teaching them his signature swagger. On Sunday afternoons you might spot him in Columbia Road Flower Market, choosing roses for the club's tables, bowtie on. He still signs his emails "Follow the Bear," though now it's mostly about following his Spotify playlists.

The double life of the Honey Monster

Picture the Honey Monster, that golden giant of breakfast cereal, returning each evening to an oversized flat in Brighton. He's a part-time yoga instructor, teaching Gentle Giant classes to nervous beginners who love how mindfully he demonstrates poses without knocking over the studio lights. At weekends he volunteers at local apiaries, using his height to reach the awkward beehives. His feed is all sunset beach meditation and honey-drizzled breakfast bowls that never quite make it into the official Sugar Puffs campaign.

Aleksandr Orlov: the meerkat behind the mansion

Compare the Market's Aleksandr Orlov projects aristocratic luxury, but what's really going on at that mansion? Between commercial shoots he runs a thriving vintage smoking-jacket restoration business on Etsy. His servant Sergei isn't just an employee. They're partners in a tech startup building an app that helps small mammals find affordable insurance. The west wing has been converted into a co-working space for entrepreneurial rodents.

As fanciful as these are, there's a serious point underneath them. When Coca-Cola re-hashed its famous holiday ad, it did nothing to advance the story. It was a facsimile, when there was an open invitation to go a great deal further.

The business case: dormant IP, woken up

Here is the part that should interest a CFO, not just a creative director. Most brands are sitting on a back catalogue of characters that took years and millions to build into recognisable assets, and then left to gather dust between campaigns. These are not just mascots. They are entertainment intellectual property that has already done the hardest job in marketing, which is earning a place in people's memory.

Generative AI changes the economics of using them. The technology isn't only about making content faster. It's about building deeper, richer character universes that can evolve with cultural moments while holding their core traits steady, the consistency System1 says actually drives effectiveness. A brand can now mine its own archive, pull out its most successful assets and deploy them in entirely new ways, at a cost that would have been impossible a few years ago. Imagine entertainment properties that become the backbone for ongoing content, a new breed of branded entertainment that doesn't begin with "guys, ITV want to make a documentary about us."

Originality is the usual objection to AI in creative work. Here, that objection inverts. We are not asking the machine to invent from nothing. We are feeding it inputs with decades of equity baked in, and the output can be genuinely magical. The archive is the moat.

In a hyper-fragmented media landscape, being entertaining is a survival strategy, not an option. Attention is the scarcest resource we have, and brands have to shift from interrupting entertainment to becoming it. Persistent character universes do exactly that. They create narratives consumers seek out rather than skip. Streaming has trained audiences to expect rich, layered storytelling everywhere, including from brands. When a Honey Monster yoga class or Aleksandr's startup struggles feel as engaging as the latest Netflix series, advertising stops interrupting culture and starts becoming part of it. That builds long-term brand equity while still generating the short-term engagement modern marketing demands.

So the question isn't really whether the technology is ready. It is. The question is whether brands are brave enough to look beyond the traditional constraints of advertising and ask what other stories are waiting to be told. The dimensions are there to add. The cast is already on the payroll.

Asked at the counter

What is a fluent device? A fluent device is a recurring character or creative property that carries a brand's distinctiveness across years of advertising, like the Hoffmeister Bear, the Honey Monster or Aleksandr Orlov. System1's research shows this kind of consistency is more vital than ever for building lasting memory with audiences. In practice it is entertainment IP that has already done the hardest job in marketing: earning a place in people's heads.

Can AI create branded entertainment? Yes, and the economics are the point. Tools like Veo, Sora and Runway make it feasible to build deeper, richer character universes that evolve with cultural moments while holding their core traits steady, at a cost that was impossible a few years ago. The objection that AI lacks originality inverts here, because you are feeding the machine inputs that already carry decades of brand equity.

Should brands revive old mascots? If they're sitting on recognisable characters gathering dust between campaigns, yes. That back catalogue is dormant IP that took years and millions to build, and the archive is the moat. The opportunity is to mine your most successful assets and deploy them in new, persistent narratives audiences actively seek out, rather than re-hashing a facsimile like Coca-Cola's holiday ad and advancing nothing.