Cebu Premium Mascots

Say hello to my newest baby – Cebu Premium Mascots.

This mascot idea actually started during the early months of the pandemic, and out of impulse. It was around June 2020 when my childhood friend Rizzi (Head Chef of Shangri-La Mactan) and I went to SnR. I stumbled upon the defect section of the grocery and bought this piece of gorilla inflatable mascot for only P200.00 instead of P3,000+! What a good bargain! As I’ve said, I bought it “out of impulse” because I just wanted to look “cute” in a “PPE”. Haha.

This is me feeling cute in my Gorilla inflated mascot.

This was the very first inflatable mascot I bought at S&R Cebu.

I suddenly got so excited with the inflatable that I literally purchased a lot of inflatable characters in Lazada – dinosaurs, unicorns, lizards, pokemon and just random characters I find cute.

The first brand I thought of was “Cebu Inflatable Costume,” and tried to market it as a cute alternative for PPEs; people were “interested” in me wearing it BUT but no one was interested enough on renting it.

Here’s the first graphics I had for the first brand.

Initially, the idea was just inflatable mascot-rental; this was my first poster.

My friends called me crazy. In the time of the pandemic, buying these was a “waste of money”, really. I don’t know but I am happy when I somehow do these “cute things” to make people smile.

Thankfully, Ayala Center Cebu rented some of my inflatable mascots for their Halloween event in 2020. In this time of heightened safety measures, my inflatable mascots were a perfect fit it!

Our 1st inflatable mascot booking in Ayala Center Cebu for Halloween 2020.

So fast forward when I decided to shift from inflatable to real mascots since no one is really interested in renting it. At first, I am hesistant to start this business given that a quality mascot costs P35k to P40k per piece, but well, I did what I did and bought my first mascot – JJ of Cocomelon.

Undoubtedly, he was and still is the most booked mascots.

I was hesitant due to copyright concerns, but after several discussions of fellow mascot rental owners, I felt complacent as long as we market it as “character-inspired.”

To date, I have 40+ premium mascots from JJ to Peter Rabbit to Disney-inspired princesses, to Avenger-inspired to random characters; until it dawned on me that with this bulk of collection, I need to have breathable warehousing for my mascots. I was literally hopping from one warehouse to another until I finally got a safe space for them – thankfully, it’s near my agency office in Mabolo, Cebu.

It was this February 2022 when I decided to finally do a soft launch for my mascot business now that the quarantine restriction in our city lessened, and gatherings and parties where slowly being allowed.

Here’s to 2 years of “collecting mascots” “wasting money” “investing in useless business” and hearing people telling me it was not a “necessity.”

I have to admit, they were actually right. But look at where we are now – Cebu’s only supplier of quality premium mascots. (wink)

Humility aside, we are getting at least 5 bookings every week, and our income is generating 6 digits per month. Numbers won’t lie, and I am proud of myself for making this crazy decision in the middle of the pandemic. Haha.

I want to make people happy when all of us were in a deprived state during the pandemic. I also wanted to bring the “star struck excitement” to people, especially to kids, by bringing their favorite cartoon characters in their celebrations.

I also found out that there is not much of a competition for mascots in the party needs industry here in Cebu. I think there were a few mascot suppliers before, but not much now. This is the reason why I started Cebu Premium Mascots — to provide the Cebuanos quality mascots and quality performances.