Hasbro has introduced a new mascot for Nerf, and it’s pretty memorably terrifying. The mascot is named Murph, and they are essentially thousands of Nerf darts congealed into the form of a person. Murph will be appearing in social media posts and advertisements in the coming months. Along with their unnerving figure, their motto is to “Unleash The Play In You” which sounds like a threat.
The goal of Murph and the campaign is to compel children to be more active. Murph will be featured as constantly in motion as they presumably refill their Nerf guns with their own body to fire at you. Senior Vice President of Nerf Adam Kleinman described Murph as being the “physical embodiment of that feeling you get when you play with Nerf.” Judging from the pictures so far, seeing this mascot coming at me would definitely convince me to go running.
It might seem strange to have a faceless pile of Nerf darts wielding a gun represent the brand. However, the company seems to primed to use the shock factor as a way to drive conversation and engagement. Lately, the company has gone big on using social media as a part of selling Nerf toys. Last year, Hasbro hired a TikTok brand manager via a contest to get engaged with the public. The company is also willing to embrace change, as they did making Potato Head gender neutral. Murph will use they/them pronouns, as they are supposed to represent everyone and not a specific gender.
Gritty Walked So Murph Could Run
The biggest thing to remember about why Murph could work is because of a certain mascot by the name of Gritty. The mascot for the Philadelphia Flyers was met with many raised eyebrows in 2018. It didn’t take long for people to embrace Gritty for his inherent weirdness. The only thing that must happen now is that Murph must engage in ritual combat with Gritty to assert dominance. Since Murph is presumably indestructible, they could handle all manner of punishment. However, their soft body could make so Gritty could wail on them for hours. Putting these two in the field of combat would raise a ton of attention and be the beginning of some hither unforetold prophecy. It would also sell a lot of hockey tickets and Nerf so everyone would be happy.
