We’ve written about the 12 Jungian archetypes in previous blog articles. In case you missed those, here’s a recap on the concept: Carl Jung proposed 12 archetypes that can be found in the collective unconscious. Each of these personas represent fundamental human motivations, behaviors, and personality traits. We use this ideology during brand workshops to help build strategy with a human-centric lens. We say it all the time: branding is personality. So it makes sense to approach branding with human ideals. In this post, let’s talk about how to find the right archetypes to align your brand with.
THE 12 ARCHETYPES
The 12 archetypes are arranged on a ‘wheel’ made up of 4 quadrants, each quadrant is defined by 2 core motivators. Each quadrant contains 3 archetypes, positioned by the strength of these motivators.
QUADRANT 1: Achievement and Risk
The Hero is the archetype whose primary motivator is achievement. The Hero’s promise is triumph, and their motto is “it takes a village”. The Hero is suitable for brands whose mission is to help their audience overcome some kind of adversity or challenge, and achieve greatness.
The Magician is next. The Magician’s core motivation is central between achievement and risk. The promise is transformation, and the mantra is “I’ve got the world on a string”. The Magician is a valuable archetype for brands that manifest change through their intuition and resources with ease—like magic.
The Rebel is last on the first quadrant, leaning furthest into the risk side of the motivators. The Rebel’s promise is revolution; and their mantra is “I’m doing it my way”. The Rebel is best suited for brands that challenge the status quo and aim to break from convention. Freedom of self-expression is inherent to brands who align with the Rebel.
QUADRANT 2: Independence and Fulfillment
The Explorer is first in the second quadrant; whose summoned by independence. The Explorer’s promise is freedom. Their slogan is “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” This archetype is for those who seek adventure and new experiences. Brands who relate to the Explorer embrace constant change and growth through their journey.
The Sage is next, positioned in the center of independence and fulfillment. The Sage promises wisdom above all else. Their creed is “Everything is a learning experience”. Brands who embody the Sage’s character promote research and knowledge, and aim to educate and engage through continuous conversation.
The Innocent caps off the second quadrant, leaning strongest into the fulfillment motivator. The Innocent’s promise is simplicity. “The glass is half full” is the signature sentiment of the Innocent. Brands who relate to the Innocent have a mission statement of simplicity, which is typically optimistic.
QUADRANT 3: Stability and Control
The Creator is the first to be seen on this quadrant. While stability is the Creator’s motivator, it’s through imagination they promise to achieve this. Their mantra is “See things differently.” Brands who offer innovation and originality to their audience are best served by the Creator.
The Caregiver is seen next on this quadrant, at the halfway point between stability and control. The Caregiver offers empathy. So, naturally, their motto is “How can we help?” The Caregiver is an easy choice for brands who are nurturing and provide compassion for a cause. Their main signifier is caring for others and providing support in the face of hardship.
The Ruler is the last archetype in this quadrant, with the strongest inclination toward control. The Ruler’s promise is power, and their mentality is “We’ll take it from here.” Brands who embody the Ruler exude confidence and responsibility. These are businesses who seek to establish order and control in a chaotic environment. Their services are often white-glove and may be considered exorbitant.
QUADRANT 4: Belonging and Enjoyment
The Citizen is first in this quadrant, whose focus is belonging. “We’re better together.” is the Citizen’s battle cry. Brands who relate to a layman audience, with a naturally down-to-earth personality, fit best with the Citizen. The Citizen is all about inclusion and bringing people together in harmony.
The Jester is next, halfway between the motivators of belonging and enjoyment . The Jester’s goal is entertainment, and their tagline is “Laugh a little.” Brands who understand the value in humor and spontaneity thrive with the Jester in their corner. Levity is powerful, and businesses who wish to delight their audience can depend on the Jester mentality to make their audience smile.
Last but not least in this quadrant is the Lover. The Lover’s main objective is enjoyment, as their mantra states “It feels amazing.” Brands who relate the Lover’s attributes aim to foster connection. Businesses who seek beauty and experience through the 5 senses can rely on the Lover to guide them in their messaging.
IDENTIFYING YOUR BRAND’S PERSONALITY
Now that we’ve taken a moment to reintroduce the archetypes, let’s discuss how they can be applied through your brand narrative. Defining your brand’s persona helps to create a clear and compelling image that resonates with your audience. Through a series of workshops, we work to uncover all the nuances that fit together within the character of a brand. These exercises extract some obvious details, like mission statement, vision, and core values. But we also have meaningful conversations that bring us out of the corporate thinking, and into a more personal headspace. There’s a lot more to a brand than what it does; we want to know who it is. What makes a personality unique is not as easily defined when prompted. This is where unveiling subtleties is really interesting and effective. We’ve had a lot of fun conversations with business teams about what kind of car their brand would drive, or which celebrities the brand may associate with, or who’s featured on the brand’s go-to playlist. If a brand’s mission and promise are the notes in a symphony, the personality is the melody through which that symphony resounds.
ARCHETYPAL POSITIONING
To put it simply: branding is character, and character is multifaceted. Effective branding feels familiar, like someone we’ve met, and that sentiment is what resonates with people. Through the 12 archetypes, we can begin to create a dimensional brand by leveraging their traits to create a well-rounded voice and persona. In our experience, we find it works well to align with 3 archetypes: a primary, secondary, and tertiary. A brand can work within this hierarchy to establish a balanced system, and maintain equilibrium. This sounds complicated, but in practice it comes pretty naturally.
Most brands exist to empower their audience. This message can be communicated in countless ways. We use the various archetype’s strengths to create a well rounded tone. If a brand offers high-end services, it doesn’t mean the messaging needs to be ultra-polished. The duality created by opposing strengths is super effective. If you pair a Rebel with a Citizen, it shows a fierce devotion to inclusivity and self-expression. If you combine a Sage with a Caregiver, you have a dedicated advocate for a cause. If you include both Lover and Jester, you have the life of the party. A Ruler with Creator traits can change the world with big ideas. There can be benefits to choose several from the same quadrant, or all from different quadrants. There’s no right or wrong way. Each brand has its own unique attributes that can be borrowed from the archetypes for effective strategy and positioning. This is how brand persona is created- by narrowing in on the brand’s “Why” and figuring out which type of characters will connect best to the intended audience. The most successful brands are very prosperous at deploying this kind of multifaceted brand image.
Let’s look at UberEats as an example. The parent brand Uber Technologies Inc. feels inherently like a Hero brand. “Uber” is a prefix that means “over, beyond”, as if to say their services go over and beyond for their clients. The UberEats original tagline was “Tonight, I’ll be eating”. The launch campaign featured a compilation of characters and their unique food orders being delivered to them in their home. This simple and relatable language that explains the exact outcome of UberEats’ promise: eating. The message seems to fit within the Caregiver territory, since the Caregiver’s main proclivity is helping people (in this case through an easy-to-use food delivery platform.) But UberEats delivered this message with a unique quirk, it felt like the message was more about their unique and diverse audience than their performance, and it ventured a little into Jester territory. When UberEats expanded its offering of additional delivery items (not just food), they leaned on the Jester persona to explain this change (yet it felt like it was through that same quirky tone of voice.) The campaign that followed featured celebrity icons struggling to eat the non-food items now available for delivery; it’s so good, please go watch it*. The campaign introduced a new promise “Now delivering Eats. And Don’t Eats.” UberEats did a fantastic job at taking a complicated statement about their business model changes by making it fun and memorable. It could seem counterintuitive to take a humorous approach for a more wholesome promise. But it worked brilliantly. So when you look at a brand as recognizable as Uber, you can start to see the possibilities of combining archetypal forces. The Hero, the Caregiver, and the Jester don’t seem like a sensical combination, but they each brought different strengths to the table that left a strong impression. It made for a brand image that was reliable and relatable.
*Source: Youtube, Superbowl Commercials
CHOOSING THE RIGHT ARCHETYPE FOR YOUR BRAND
The 12 archetypes lend depth to a brand. All brands all require their trust from their audience, but that is just one takeaway, and it says nothing about how the brand is different. Dimension resonates with audiences, quickly and effectively, but it has to be informed by a clear strategy. When choosing archetypes to apply throughout your brand system, think about the Who, What, Why and How of your business. There’s no singular formula for how to choose your main archetypes, it’s more about striking the appropriate balance of character. But the chosen archetypes should work together to embody these main principles. So consider your business elements as your overarching narrative: Who are the main characters? What is the conflict? What are the solutions? Who is in your community? What is the call to action? Once you have that initial understanding of who you really are, and how you are different, it’s easier to start seeing which pegs fit the right slots. Create your brand as if it’s a dating profile rather than a professional resume. The right personas will reveal themselves in this path to discovery. Then it’s just a matter of whose drivers you consider primary, and whose values can aid and support that message with style.
IMPLEMENTING YOUR CHOSEN ARCHETYPES
Assignment of the archetypes to your brand is the overarching brand strategy. Application of the archetypes is the brand’s playground. Like any creative form of expression— cooking, painting, building, acting — brand design starts with a set of central attributes, and builds on itself through nuance and subtext. The subtleties become the signature. There are countless ways to implement the archetypes through your brand elements. The primary archetype may be the key player in composing the promise, while the supportive personas help determine your prose. Harmony created by the archetypal triad allows brands to speak to the right audience. The visual strategy may apply a different hierarchy of traits to help stand out amongst competitors. The primary function of design is to catch attention. Once you have that attention, your messaging lives within design to add context and resonance.
While it’s important to stand out and be different, consistency is also key. Even with a strong strategy, it can be easy to lose direction and become chaotic. Creating a set of standards for each brand element is a vital step in the implementation of archetypes. We’ve discussed how to apply the archetypes through tone and messaging, but it’s important to explore this deep under the surface. If we’re thinking about 3 guiding personas to define the brand, we want to make sure it sounds like one well-rounded person, not a crowded room. To make sure the brand direction is sustainable, a set of rules needs defining as the brand grows. Set standards for each message, audience, conversation, and platform. For content creators, this comes in the form of guides for each speaking environment. Content is best served when adhering to these guides for website content, customer service conversations, social media engagement, and any written copy for marketing collateral. Give clear instructions for each of these settings. What is the proper tone for each platform? What are some reliable phrasing conventions? Which verbiage should be used? Visual design also creates a set of do’s and don’ts to abide by. In addition to establishing some consistent style treatments (photography styles, typesetting, color usage, etc.) design also needs instruction on the proper settings for which personality traits lead on each platform. Making a memorable impression is not just about being loud or different, it’s about feeling the signature throughout the entire brand experience. When your audience engages with your brand, they should be able to pick you out from a crowd thereafter, and remember the connection they had with you. Personality creates connection. Consistency creates recognition.
CONCLUSION
Every brand has a story. The 12 Jungian archetypes represent a spectrum of human behaviors and personalities we can use to write the narrative of your brand’s story. Through these portraits, a brand can center its messaging and design through various combinations of these archetypal strengths and identifiers. This is a pragmatic approach for taking your brand in a more human-centered direction. It can be complex, but complexity is good. We’ve worked to create a comprehensive process to help empower brands through archetypal analysis, and have had a lot of fun during these workshop sessions. To learn more about the 12 archetypes check out this post.