The VAR Guy is seeing green. Lots of it. Seems like the IT industry and mainstream marketers have fallen for green lizards. The latest entrant comes from ChannelEyes, a social media network for channel partners that launches a limited pilot today. The ChannelEyes mascot is Charlie Channel. He looks like a close relative of Geeko — the SUSE Linux mascot. Oh, and don’t forget about the GEICO Gecko — not exactly high-tech, but this is a far-fetched blog entry so stick with The VAR Guy…
The VAR Guy is most familiar with Geeko, a chameleon who serves as the SUSE Linux mascot. Geeko combines Gecko and Geek into a single world. Got it?
Then, of course, there’s the GEICO Gecko — master of the insurance market. Not exactly a tech dude. But a great accent and plenty of TV camera time keep him front of mind.
Well, Hello There
Now along comes ChannelEyes’ mascot, Charlie Channel — apparently The Fonz without the leather. Charlie Channel, no relation to Charlie the Tuna, already has his own Google+ account. And you can bet he plans to whip up a social media storm — assuming former Autotask and Lenovo channel pundit Jay McBain is somehow holding the puppet strings.
Sure, the GEICO Gecko has mainstream popularity. But in the world of social media, the secret to success is to dig narrow and deep in a specific market segment. You can bet that’s Charlie Channel’s plan with ChannelEyes…
Read More About This Topic
Share This Post
Tags: ChannelEyes Mascot | Charlie Channel | GEICO Gecko | SUSE Linux Mascot
Interact: Add a Comment | Trackback Link | Permalink
Subscribe: RSS Feed
Don't miss Charlene O'Hanlon's weekly columns...
We were ecstatic with the hiring of Charlie for the ChannelEyes mascot! For the record, he is a chameleon not a gecko. Someone on Facebook said that he was a third cousin (twice removed) of the GEICO Gecko
Chameleons have a couple of attributes that make them different than other species – one is their unique eyes that can see 360 degrees and focus on more than one thing at once (Channel “eyes”). The second is the ability to change color and adapt to their surroundings – something we have seen with partners moving through different technology and business models.
And VAR Guy is correct, no relation to Charlie Tuna, Charlie Brown, Charlie Chaplin and especially not Charlie Sheen!
Thanks so much Joe for putting all three mascots side by side in your blog. The ChannelEyes chameleon definitely has more ‘tude, but I read a lot more into his thumbs up and sunglasses – I think its just a guise, camouflage for a super smart, quick moving critter with lots of grey matter…
O.
Jay: The VAR Guy thanks you for confirming Charlie Channel as a chameleon. You never know when info like that will become an important piece of channel trivia.
Osama: A little bit of attitude certainly goes a long way with mascots…
-TVG