WHAT: In developing new brands and rebranding existing organisations a powerful tool used by leading brand strategist is the concept of archetypes. Simply put, an archetype is a classic character or personality type that shows up over and over again in stories, movies, and brands. Without going into great detail, archetypes were introduced by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist in the early 20th century. Jung introduced the idea of 12 archetypes as pictured. The idea is while a brand may at tiems exhibit more than one archetypes behaviour, there is a core archetype to the brand.
WHEN: Typically in the earliest stages of brand development or rebranding. Identifying and agreement amongst keys stakeholders on the organisations brand archetype provides a clear strategy and vision of how the brand should act in the marketplace.
WHY: Simply because people (internally to the organisation and externally) easily recognise them and can relate to them. Jung’s archetypes provide a powerful psychological framework that can be used to develop a brand identity and brand strategy by tapping into universally recognised symbols and behavioural patterns. They can help create emotional resonance, consistency, and clarity in branding.
Internally to an organisation, making adoption of the brands of brand guidelines easier and therefore much more likely to be followed. While placement of a logo and graphic elements can be an easy thing to convey in a brand guideline or manifesto, type of personal or language to use when in various copy from press releases to sales pitches to on-hold audio can be a lot harder. Especially in larger organisations.
Externally to an organisation, they help create emotional connection and clarity with customers and other members of the organisations ecosystem. For example in the pharmaceutical industry while a patient is likely the paying customer, there’s also specialist doctors, primary care physicians/general practitioners, nurses and other health care support workers that all need to buy into a brand.
WHERE: Carl Jung’s archetype can be used with any brand and in any market. The idea is that archetypes are universal to human behaviour.
HOW: Get in touch with the team at Xortie today and we’ll help you develop your brand.
