Liberty Mutual on Making Liberty Biberty: “We’re Not Manufacturing a Mascot and Hoping It Sticks”

By Heather Taylor, Editor-in-Chief, PopIcon

Liberty Biberty may be Liberty Mutual’s new character, but technically the concept has existed since 2019. This was the year Liberty Mutual’s “Bad Actor” spot starred a struggling actor (played by Tanner Novlan) messing up takes while filming a Liberty commercial. Some of these blunders, like mistakenly saying “Liberty Butual,” stayed on the cutting room floor. But it was “Liberty Biberty” that stood the test of time, as far as flubs go.

How does a flub make the leap from being a valuable part of a brand’s footprint into becoming its own distinct character? We spoke to Jenna Lebel, Chief Marketing Officer, US Retail Markets at Liberty Mutual, about all things Liberty Biberty and we mean, everything. How the insurance brand settled on a fuzzy yellow creature instead of using an animal or human, why Biberty doesn’t have a body, and whether you’ll see him joining LiMu Emu and Doug in a commercial anytime soon.

Think of this Q&A as everything you wanted to know about Liberty Biberty, but might not have thought to ask. (“Liberty Biberty” is the character’s full name, btw, and his nickname is Biberty, which we gradually refer to him as increasingly throughout the piece.)

Which came first: the idea to launch a new character or the “Liberty Biberty” flub as enough of a “Eureka!” moment to inspire its own character?

It started with the 2019 ad when our “Bad Actor” character struggled to pronounce “Liberty Mutual.” Since then, “Liberty Biberty” has taken on a life of its own. It caught on quickly, people repeated it, and it became part of the internet lexicon. Brands can spend years and millions of dollars trying to build this kind of cultural equity from scratch. We already had it. How do we harness that equity and give it a physical form and purpose?

The answer became the Liberty Biberty character. What I love about this campaign is we’re not manufacturing a mascot and hoping it sticks. We’re taking something people already know and repeat and giving it a bigger role in the world.

Liberty Mutual has LiMu Emu and Doug in its character roster. For the third addition, did Liberty Mutual consider adding on another human or animal? Or did you have a hunch the brand could benefit from a character that was more of a creature?

We looked at a lot of directions. We reviewed a number of concepts, well over a hundred ads, before we landed here. But once we committed to building on the “Liberty Biberty” phrase itself, the character almost had to be something other than a literal person or animal.

We wanted something that felt one part familiar, one part unexpected. The name gives you the familiar. The character gives you the unexpected.

Great coverage at a great price gives you this warm, relieved feeling, and a fuzzy yellow creature that’s a little quirky and totally unique felt like the right embodiment, rather than another person or animal added to an already crowded category.

How would you describe Biberty’s personality and his “North Star” as a brand representative?

Personality-wise, he’s friendly, optimistic, and a little quirky. He has a point of view on the world and he’s not afraid to share it.  He speaks to people like their friend, with this charming mix of confidence and honesty.

He’s a big fan of Liberty Mutual who wants to tell everyone about their great coverage at a great price. His North Star is helping people feel confident they can get the insurance coverage they need without paying more than they should.

Biberty is essentially a fluffy yellow head wearing a Statue of Liberty-styled diadem. How did the look for Biberty come about? Who decided this character did not need a full body and was fine existing as just a fuzzy head?

That decision came out of wanting him to be something you could actually reach out and touch. We chose to skip CGI and AI and go with a practical puppet.

Once we committed to that, we spent an enormous amount of time on every physical detail: how big he should be, how furry, the size of his mouth, what his teeth looked like, exactly where the crown sat on his head. We got a lot of consumer feedback along the way and iterated constantly. The “no body” decision fell out of the same instinct toward simplicity and warmth. Turns out a face, a voice, and yellow fur are all he needs to make you feel something.

Can you detail how Jim Henson’s Creature Shop crafted Biberty?

Once we knew we wanted this to be a puppet, partnering with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop was a no brainer. Our creative partners at Bandits & Friends created the overall design for Biberty, then we worked closely with Jim Henson’s Creature Shop at every stage of the development process.

They started with a simple foam mock-up to nail the proportions, then sourced the yellow fur, custom-fabricated the blue eyes, and built multiple versions of the puppet for different filming needs. One version uses something called a Waldo, a remote-control puppeteering system Jim Henson originally developed, which gives Biberty natural, nuanced facial expressions. And then we found the perfect puppeteer and voice artist in Grant Baciocco, who has over 20 years of puppetry experience, to bring him to life.

Biberty’s puppet will never be caught running around, à la LiMu Emu and Doug. What are some of the biggest challenges in creating a character not possessing mobility — and creative wins?

The challenge is obvious: he can’t walk into a scene, run a bit, or wander off on his own steam, so every appearance has to be built around bringing the world to him. People at their cars, a bar stool, a familiar face from the original 2019 ad stopping by.

This forced us to be more disciplined about the comedy. When we became more thoughtful about Biberty’s movement and his relationship to the human characters, we built more humor that lives in his face, his timing, and his voice. And when we do use physical comedy, it lands harder because it’s intentional.

The upside is it makes him incredibly distinct in a category full of characters running around. And it opens up genuinely fun gags, like having him slide down a bar top. Not having legs turned out to be a feature, not a limitation.

How has the consumer response been to Biberty so far?

Really encouraging. The launch videos picked up millions of views and sparked a level of press and social conversation well beyond what we expected for a debut. We’ve loved seeing an early fandom emerge, from requests for Liberty Biberty plushies to user-generated videos of people sharing how much they love him. We’re already seeing strong brand association and likeability in early consumer research. People notice him, and they connect him to Liberty Mutual quickly, which is exactly what you want from a new character in his first weeks.

What we’re watching now is the slower-building metric: the emotional relationship. Right now, some of his warmth is still borrowed from a joke people already loved. Our job over the next few years is to help him earn that affection in his own right, the way LiMu Emu and Doug have.

Many mascots tend to engage audiences on social media the more unhinged they behave. Will Biberty lean into the unhinged mascot trend or march to the beat of its own drum?

Biberty’s going to do his own thing. He’s witty, but his humor is rooted in genuinely wanting to help people get great insurance coverage at a great price. That doesn’t mean he won’t have playful, unexpected moments. He’s a fuzzy yellow puppet who rolls around and chats up strangers. There’s inherent charm in that. But it’s rooted in warmth, not shock value. That’s intentional, and it’s consistent with how we think about the whole Liberty Mutual character universe. We want each character to be funny, familiar, and relatable in a way that still feels unmistakably “Liberty.”

When will LiMu Emu and Doug star in a commercial with Biberty? And what else can we expect from Biberty in 2026?

You’ll see a fun cameo from our original “bad actor” in one of the Liberty Biberty launch spots. At the moment, we don’t have any crossovers planned with LiMu Emu & Doug but never say never! Biberty, LiMu & Doug and our Truth Tellers campaign all live within the same brand universe, so anything is possible.

Beyond that, you’ll see Biberty across TV, streaming, social and creator partnerships, plus media integrations like NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball” and ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” and real-world appearances where he can bring joy and delight beyond the screen. Our goal is the same patient, long-term approach we’ve taken with LiMu Emu & Doug: keep Biberty true to our brand, keep listening to how people respond, and let him earn his place in pop culture rather than force it.

Image Credit: Liberty Mutual Insurance

About the Author

Heather Taylor is the senior writer and editor-in-chief of PopIcon, Advertising Week’s blog about brand mascots. Got a pitch on brand mascots or want to wax nostalgic about characters? Drop her a line at howveryheather@gmail.com.