Why You Need To Build Your Brand Using Archetypes
In a world where everything you need is accessible with just one click, making your brand stand out is a challenge for many companies. Sure, we can all initially acquire a decent number of customers but retaining them is the true feat. One way to get them to trust your brand and keep them coming back for more is to build your brand using archetypes.
Consumer decisions are often founded on emotions. People go for a brand that they feel most connected with. Therefore, it’s important that your brand personality appeals to the emotions of your target market. You’re not just selling to them—you’re communicating with them. You want them to see your brand beyond your price tags. You want them to see your message.
In order to reflect the values and the desires of your audience, your brand personality needs to go hand in hand with their own personalities. This is where it is helpful to build your brand using archetypes.
What Is A Brand Archetype?
Based on Carl Jung’s twelve personality archetypes, brand archetypes are various sets of characteristics that a brand categorically falls under. This helps the brands establish their personality which in turn helps consumers choose who to resonate with.
The twelve brand archetypes are:
- The Magician – makes dreams come true/visionaries
- The Hero – wants to save the world
- The Creator – artistic; all about freedom for creative expression
- The Ruler – thrives in order
- The Lover – the face of passion and intimacy
- The Caregiver – exudes maternal characteristics such as compassion and selflessness
- The Sage – believes in the power of wisdom and intellect
- The Jester – injects humor in everything; lighthearted
- The Rebel – always challenges the norm
- The Explorer – values adventure and living in the moment
- The Regular Guy or Gal – seeks to be relatable to everyone
- The Innocent – possesses childlike characteristics such as purity and even naivety
Now that you are introduced to the twelve brand archetypes, it is time to conduct an in-depth study of how your brand resembles any of these.
Are you a Caregiver archetype? Does your brand promote intimacy like the Lover? Or are your visions as carefree as the Explorer?
No matter which brand archetype you choose, it is important that you identify with an archetype that is most authentic to the message of your brand. When your brand archetype is misaligned with the personality archetypes of your audience, you will find it hard to build a solid connection with them.
Benefits Of Using A Brand Archetype
Why is it important for companies to build their brand using archetypes?
The answer is simple: their human element.
Having a brand archetype means putting characteristics in your brand as you would see in a real person. Your brand can be loving, adventurous, sensitive, or funny. What’s important here is that your brand is able to tap into people who are also loving, adventurous, sensitive, or funny.
Having customers who feel that your brand understands them is a foolproof way to get them to trust you.
Once your audience feels emotionally connected with you, brand loyalty easily follows suit. After all, loyalty is another powerful emotion.
The greatest benefit of using a brand archetype is that you are able to transform your once lifeless business into an emotional endeavor. Your brand needs to make people feel things. You can have the coolest marketing campaigns but if they lack emotions, they can never appeal to the people you’re trying to communicate with.
The Power of Brand Archetypes
Inspiration.
If there’s one universal goal that all brand archetypes carry, it is to inspire people.
The Rebel wants their audience to break free from their shells. The Caregiver wants to spread a message of love and care for each other. The Magician wants to inspire people to work on their dreams.
The power of brand archetypes lies in how you are able to make your brand a part of someone else’s journey. It could be a journey to fitness or motherhood, but all brand archetypes can give you the power to empower people.
The power of brand archetypes can also be seen in how they can make your brand personality look authentic. People are tired of reading slogans that perfectly rhyme but are not in the slightest bit relatable. The market is saturated with witty lines and flashy designs. Today, authenticity is the name of the game.
People are more conscious of the values that a brand carries. They want to associate with products that align with their own views. They don’t hesitate to support brands that they truly believe in.
Identifying your brand’s archetype is an undeniably powerful tool it is in shaping the best personality for your brand.
As you establish a personal relationship with your audience, the characteristics of each archetype allow you to get a glimpse of their behavior, thoughts, and motivations. From there, you can rule out what’s important for your market and how you can shape your brand in the direction of their priorities.
Consumerism will always be interconnected with human psychology. The sooner you realize how integrating emotions can make or break your campaign, the easier it is to position your brand at the center of quality customer experience.
Let the brand archetypes guide you in building a better brand for people. Understand your audience’s lives. Know their feelings. Know their struggles. Then, create a brand that supports all of them.
