Learn how your brand’s archetype can help you win customers using a 4-step approach

The 4-step approach to uncovering your brand archetype

A brand archetype is not something that your brand just happens to fall into. It’s not a zodiac sign assigned to your brand at birth.  

Contrary to the idea of assigning a brand archetype based on what you, as a business owner, identify with, we invite you to employ a very strategic and deliberate process based around your key audience (ideal customer) with the goal of creating a real, almost human-like connection with them. 

Step 1

Understand your customer’s basic human desire

In other words, why is your customer seeking your service or product? Let’s take a web design agency as an example. A customer wants a new website because the old one is no longer relevant and doesn’t represent the business well. There can be a couple of basic human desires behind that want, like Belonging – my competition has a great looking website and I stand out; or Power/Superiority – I want to look better than my competition because my product/service is better.   

The desire you uncover may not be the exact match to the words used in the table above, and the goal is to align with the closest related concept. 

Step 2

Match your customer’s basic desire (or broad desires) to an archetype  

Now that you understand your customer’s why, you can match it with a Brand Archetype. If you are a health and fitness brand and your core audience wants growth and self-development, then the Hero will give them what they are looking for. On the other hand, if your audience is all about optimism, happiness, and being down to earth, the Innocent archetype may be the right fit for your brand.

Your customers may have a core desire that doesn’t define their personality. But knowing the desire will help you select the best archetype and position your brand in the market with the goal of evoking that desire with your product/service offerings.

Step 3

Consider adopting a secondary archetype

If you are in a highly competitive market, some of your competition may be strategic enough to adopt an archetype. It would not be to your advantage to be one of many Everymen in your niche. To set yourself apart, consider adopting a secondary archetype. To make sure your brand is not diluted, it is not recommended to mix more than two archetypes. The primary should be 70%, while the secondary – 30%.

In other words, if all of the Pet Hotels on the block have positioned themselves as the Caregivers, add 30% of the Explorer or the Jester to stand out.

Step 4

Give your brand a personality

To connect with your customers in a really meaningful way, your brand needs a personality. It needs an outlook on life, opinions, and beliefs. Once you have selected an archetype or a mix of two archetypes, go through an exercise of answering key questions your customers would ask from your brand’s perspective. The questions your customers may want to hear answers to include:

• What is different about you and why should I pick you?
• What value do you bring?
• Why do you do what do?
• What is one thing you would change in your industry?
  
  

This can be a really powerful exercise resulting into opinions and beliefs of your brand being translated into how it communicates with the customers. The personality of your brand becomes aligned with the basic desires of your audience, transforming the transactional relationships into customer loyalty over years to come.

How can brand archetypes benefit me?

Simply applying the archetypal framework to your business will put your brand miles ahead of your competition.

Aligning your brand as much possible to a single archetype will equip your brand with personality that will feel familiar to your audience. Your brand’s communication style will transform from a boring sales copy to consistency and humanity of a real person with opinions, attitudes, and language similar to the ones of your customers. And that alone is a great differentiator. 

There are hidden advantages of adopting a brand archetype that go beyond attracting your ideal customers. The archetypal branding helps business owners recognize and appreciate the real human value of their products and services, and makes their brands come alive and become instantly relatable. 

Once you have your archetype in place, applying it to your brand’s visuals is the next step. Contact us to get started.

Want to learn more about brand archetypes?

• Check out the book “The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes” by Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson
• Visit http://www.carolspearson.com/archetypal-branding/