Sim Graham doesn’t like bananas, but that might be the only weakness of his portrayal of a gorilla on the streets of Akron.“I’m like a landmark on this corner,” he explained, getting to the point of his fame and marketing endeavor.Graham, 57, stands on the sidewalk at East Market Street and Arlington Street, dancing, gesturing and charming passers-by to patronize his Akron employer, Best Bedding. (The sign on the building says Mattress Warehouse, but the name has changed).Several miles west where state Route 18 changes from Market Street to Medina Road, different critters and characters roam the sidewalks in what might be called guerilla marketing.“I love interacting with the kids … I feel like a celebrity,” said Shaun Jackson, 35, aka Mario of video game fame. He’s a huckster for Gamesource, a place to buy and sell video games.Like Graham, he’s a former factory worker who was so hard up for work, he was willing to dress up and mug for drivers and their kids. They make minimum wage. Now, he likes it.“It’s a blessing,” he said. And later added, “They care about you.”Especially the kids, who make their parents stop to chat with their costumed heroes and have their picture taken.One of the more common questions: “Where’s Luigi?”The answer is, he only works Friday, Saturday and Sunday.Luigi, in the person of Marshall Morgan, 25, works to preserve the illusion for kids.“I do my best to just answer their question in just nods as to not taking the effect of them meeting Luigi and not just some guy,” he said.“Sometimes the kids are so excited they get the parents to pull over to give Mario or Luigi a hug, things like that,” he said.Not everyone is so loving, but Morgan takes it in stride.“You get people who harass you now and then, but it’s part of the job; you’re dressed up in a silly costume,” he said.Gamesource owner Ron Mainor purchased costumes and has one of the characters on the street from noon to 6 p.m. almost every workday.The store opened earlier this year.“For the first couple of months, 98 percent of the people who came in, the only reason was because they saw Mario or Luigi,” Mainor said.Gamesource is at 3571 Brookwall Drive, Copley Township, not the most visible location in the Montrose area filled with retail clutter, lots of traffic and a major competitor that can be seen from state Route 18.Animal magnetismMike Swan has a similar problem with his Sportmans Liquidation store at 143 Rothrock Road in Copley. He has a deer, turkey and a bear carrying signs saying the store is near Home Depot.On extremely hot days, he has the employees, mostly high school boys, wearing cooler camouflage outfits and carrying the same signs, but he prefers the wildlife.“I think the animals are a little bit more evident,” he said.Andru Pearce , 18, said he enjoys portraying a turkey or deer.“It’s pretty easy, the only thing that bothers me is the heat and the monotony,” he said.The hot spell in July was difficult but he got through it without getting sick.“It wasn’t horrible, though; they gave us good breaks,” he said.John Langer employs Jim Ryan to carry a sign and pipe wrench to promote his H. Jacks Plumbing & Heating Co. The company has used that form of promotion for years in the Cleveland area and more recently in the Montrose neighborhood.“It’s a form of marketing we have used now for probably 25 years,” he said. “A good sign man is very hard to come by, somebody who is reliable someone who is pretty durable.”All of the store owners said they see immediate results when the mascots take to the streets, but Langer said his benefits come more slowly.“We get pretty good feedback,” he said. “It doesn’t happen immediately; it takes time to build that awareness. But we find it to be a pretty good form of advertising and marketing.”The mascots occasionally encounter beggars on the same sidewalk but Gamesource’s Mainor said they aren’t potential job candidates.“I personally have offered every last one of them [beggars] a job. They all turned me down,” he said.Swan at Sportmans Liquidation had a similar experience.“Actually, I did I talk to a couple of them [about a job],” he said. “But I wasn’t sure of their hygiene and …because the suits will be worn by different people, I backed off on it.”Easy to rememberBill Wooley, owner of Best Bedding, said the gorilla has become the face of the store.“I get a lot of phone calls and they ask where we are and I say, well, we have a guy in a gorilla suit and they know right where we are,” he said.Graham came into the mattress store looking for work and has been wearing the gorilla suit for seven years. Now he’s taking his act to a higher level.An Oberlin film crew made a five-minute documentary about him that will be shown at a film series called the Amerikans at the Akron Art Museum on Aug. 25. It’s called The Big G.Building on that enthusiasm, Graham is organizing three other gorillas, one with pink hair, to perform at nursing homes and other functions. He doesn’t expect much trouble getting gigs.“Really, the public promotes me,” he said. “They wave and blow horns at me, so they really do the promoting.Dave Scott can be reached at 330-996-3577 or davescott@thebeaconjournal.com