What is an intranet mascot?

An intranet mascot is a character (such as an animal, object, or persona) that represents your intranet and gives it a personality. Think of them as the friendly face employees interact with. A mascot builds familiarity, encourages engagement, and gives your team something to connect with.

In the case of intranet mascots, they can help to create a connection between your employees and their intranet. 

Does your intranet need a mascot?

If you ask our most successful customers, the answer is yes! Intranet mascots are a great way for HR, communications, and marketing leads to boost intranet engagement and adoption with a little fun.

How do mascots support intranet success?

• People engage more readily with a personified character than with an announcement from “the intranet”
• A mascot creates emotional continuity and employees start to look out for them
• They give your intranet team a playful, lower-stakes voice for sensitive nudges
• They become part of your intranet culture over time
  

How to create an intranet mascot

The best mascots feel integrated in your organization and intranet’s overall brand. 

Where to find inspiration for your intranet mascot

Get inspired by your intranets name and theme

• If your intranet has a name with a natural character attached, start there
• A nature-themed intranet might suggest an animal; a location-themed name might suggest a local landmark
• The name and the mascot should feel like they belong together

Nod to your organization’s location or history

• Think about what’s distinctive about where you’re based or where your story began
• Local geography, a founding story, or a notable figure from your organization’s history can all spark ideas

Go with an existing brand character

• Some organizations already have an offline mascot, like a physical costume, a logo character, or an unofficial symbol
• Sometimes a mascot emerges naturally from a rebrand or a name change; keep an eye out for those moments

Involve your staff with creating your mascot from the start

Getting employees involved is one of the best things you can do for adoption. When people feel ownership over the character, they’re far more likely to engage with them.

Run a naming contest

• Open up the naming process to the whole organization
• Ask staff to submit suggestions and then put it to a vote
• Even employees who don’t engage with the intranet much will often participate in a fun vote

Crowdsource the backstory

• Ask staff to suggest fun facts, hobbies, or personality traits for the mascot
• Run a poll to choose between character options or visual designs

Give your mascot an identity

Mascots with a real identity stick. Go beyond just a name and image.

The basics

• Name
• Visual character (animal, object, or persona)

Add some depth

• A short backstory connecting them to your organization or intranet name
• A personality. Are they enthusiastic? Laid back? Curious?
• Fun facts, like a favorite food, hobbies, pet peeves; this kind of detail makes mascots memorable

Give them a home on the intranet

• Create a profile for them in your people directory
• Add a bio, job title (e.g. “Mascot”), and contact details (a real or fun email address)
• Include fun facts in the profile. It gives employees a reason to visit and something to talk about
  

How to increase engagement with your mascot

This is the most common and impactful job a mascot can do.

Post regular updates

• Use your mascot account to share news, reminders, and announcements
• A named character making news posts feels more personal than a generic system notification
• Consistency matters. Regular posts build the habit of employees looking out for them

Ask questions and spark conversation

• Post a question of the week, a fun poll, or a prompt for employees to share something
• Questions work especially well on the news feed or in a dedicated social section

Make the mascot the face of the intranet

• Use the mascot in your site header, logo, and onboarding content
• The more visible they are from day one, the faster they become part of the intranet’s identity
• Look for natural wordplay in your mascot’s name that you can apply to section names and features. When the mascot’s name is woven into the site structure, they feel like part of the fabric rather than a bolt-on
• Some organizations name their intranet after the mascot, making them completely inseparable

Celebrate milestones and events

• Use the mascot in banners and posts to promote upcoming events. A familiar face increases the chance people will stop and read
• Use the mascot’s “birthday” to celebrate the anniversary of your intranet launch
• Build campaigns around mascot storylines that invite staff to participate

Encourage participation

• The mascot can call out low-engagement periods and invite people back
• A gentle nudge from a friendly character lands very differently than a system alert or a message from management

Deliver messages more sensitively

• Some messages are awkward to send. Think overdue mandatory training, reminders to update a profile, or nudges to complete a survey
• Coming from a mascot, those messages feel more like a friendly heads-up
• It’s easier to ignore an automated system notification than it is to ignore a character you’ve come to recognise
• The mascot takes the edge off communications that would otherwise feel bureaucratic or nagging

How to ensure long-term success of an intranet mascot

Keep the mascot feeling fresh

• Seasonal costume variations (holidays, events, seasons)
• Tie them to real milestones: intranet anniversaries, company celebrations
• Let the storyline evolve: new adventures, “life events”, seasonal campaigns
• Stay consistent

Avoid common pitfalls

• Overuse: if the mascot is everywhere all the time, they lose their novelty
• Inconsistency: make sure the visual style is consistent across all imagery
• Abandonment: a mascot that stops posting becomes a ghost and undermines trust in the intranet
• Too corporate: mascots work because they feel human and playful; don’t sanitise them into another comms channel

As your intranet matures

• Start small: a profile and occasional posts are enough to get going. Build their role gradually as you see what resonates with your team
• Mascots don’t have to arrive at launch, introducing one during a revitalisation or rebrand can work just as well
• It’s fine if the mascot’s role evolves over time; give them room to grow into it

---

Examples of intranet mascots

Lots of our customers have intranet mascots. In fact, many of our award winning intranets from last year had a mascot. Some had unique backstories, but none as clever as that of Triumph.

As the winners in our Design category in our ThoughtFarmer Best Intranets, we fell in love with Otto, which is not only the name of Triumph Bancorp’s intranet, but it is also the name of their adorable otter mascot. With his very own profile page, Otto’s presence is evident throughout their intranet site. 

As Triumph shared with us, they made the decision early on to personify their intranet. They then researched many different types of mascots, but eventually decided on an otter. 

“We chose an otter because they are considered social animals that are symbols of happiness and never-ending curiosity,” said Amanda Tavackoli, SVP, Director of Corporate Communication at Triumph Bancorp. After naming him Otto (Short for #OneTeam Today), they then worked with their advertising agency to create the character using their brand colors. 

“As we designed the intranet, we looked for opportunities to use Otto the Otter across the platform,” added Amanda.  Otto now appears in the main header of the site, just above the navigation. He also appears in different scenarios on each of the platform’s section headers. For example, under policies, he’s holding a clipboard, whereas he’s giving a presentation under their internal operations area. 

Perhaps the most impressive part of their mascot was that he also has a significant other. Her name is Olive, and she also can be seen sporadically on designated pages including the “Our Team” section. 

But Otto (and Olive) is far from just a pretty face. The personification of Triumph Bancorp’s intranet has strengthened their ability to communicate with employees. 

“The ThoughtFarmer platform combined with Otto’s design supports our strategic initiatives to improve communication, strengthen our culture, facilitate knowledge sharing, create efficiencies for team members, and enhance collaboration across the enterprise,” said Amanda.  

Even if you are not ready to commit to a mascot, it still is worth personifying your intranet. When we redesigned our intranet, we incorporated many of our animal friends into our intranet headers. As you can see in the image below, we turned Kai the Bear into a guitar playing GIF.

Need more inspiration? Check out our 2026 Award Winning Intranets.