Brand Archetypes; a series. Post 1 of 13.

What is it that connects people to brands?

Why are people loyal to some brands and not to others?

Why do we care about a product or service like they are human?

The answer lies in Brand Personality.

What do we mean by brand personality?

A brand personality is a set of human characteristics attributed to a brand that customers, specifically target the brand’s intended target audience, can relate to.

Bu creating that connection, brands are able to form strong bonds and even brand loyalty, which in the long run builds brand equity, and desired outcomes (increased margins, donations etc).

How do we get to a brand personality?

There are a number of frameworks and ways to articulate your brands personality. One of my favourite approaches is through the use of Brand Archetypes.

What is a Brand Archetype?

Psychologist, Carl Jung, established the theory of human archetypes, which he laid out in 2 core publications; The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1969) and On the nature of the Psyche (1954).

Jung stated that the human psyche is made up of 3 components: The ego, The personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. He believed that archetypes came from the collective unconscious, and these archetypes were inbuilt, universal, mythic characters were present within all humans within a global collective unconscious.

And this fit’s into branding how?

This system of archetypes has long since been adopted by brand strategists as a tool to articulate brand personality types and their characteristic. Effective brand personalities are ones that are true to the companies core values, vision and mission.

The 12 Archetypes

Jung outlined 12 Archetypes, and since then there have been many updates and variations to their names – but the core characteristics and motivations remain essentially the same.

In this series I’ll be looking at these 12 archetypes in depth along with examples of my own work and case studies of well-known brands:

• Innocent
• Sage (Also known as the Mentor)
• Explorer
• Outlaw (Also known as the Rebel)
• Magician
• Hero
• Lover
• Jester
• The Citizen (Also known as the Everyman)
• Caregiver
• Ruler
• Creator