Get our free Guide now!

​

Review these archetypes and consider what might be most appropriate to apply to your business. Next steps:

​

• Study the best examples of brands that apply archetypes well. Do you identify with any of them? Which archetype is your company most like?
• Thoughtfully consider your company’s image and how your customers interact with, think of and feel about your company to determine the most suitable and compelling archetype.
• This guide provides detailed descriptions of the 12 archetypes. Read them and consider how you might apply one to create a compelling archetype for your brand.

​

​

Check out this video on Brand Archetypes!

​

You must first think about what your brand is and who your target audience is before developing a brand utilizing archetypes.

​

You need to be well-aware of how prospective clients view your business, your offerings, and your services. Additionally, consider your desired perception of your business in their eyes.

​

Brand perception is influenced by more than simply a logical and analytical reaction; in fact, our emotional responses to brands play a major role in how we perceive them.

​

HOW TO DO IT:

An archetype is fundamentally a stereotypical character derived from eons of human experience, representing your brand via human character traits.

​

However, it is too generalized and raw to connect with an audience directly. Once you have determined your archetype you then need to translate this into a brand personality and use this to build connections with your target audience.

​

A brand personality is a set of human characteristics that are associated with a company brand.

​

It is akin to anthropomorphizing a brand and it is the brand personality that an audience relates to and interacts with. It is what makes your business distinct in the eye of your customers and is communicated via brand facets such as brand identity, tone of voice and your various brand touch points.

​

Various character traits can be attributed to your brand personality and these should be expressed as adjectives as seen from the 12 Brand Archetypes above.

​

For example, the Lover is described as Passionate, Committed, Romantic, Affectionate and Indulgent.

​

First of all, you need to understand who your key customers’ personas are in order to be able to communicate with them with authority and authenticity. Ask;

• What are the key demographics – age, gender, race etc
• What is their professional background? (If relevant)
• What are their hobbies or interests?
• What are their key motivations and psychographics?

​

Use your brand archetype as the core and, if you need to, add more adjectives to describe your business.

​

It’s ok if you find your brand has associations with a secondary archetype as long as you have defined your primary archetype.

​

Define 3-5 key adjectives you believe most closely describe your brand. These are the cornerstone of your brand personality.

​

​

Creating a brand archetype to fit your ideal client requires understanding the emotions that your brand appeals to, the customer who will engage with those emotions, and the most effective way to evoke those emotions.

​

In the 1940s, Swiss psychologist Carl Jung developed a set of common personality archetypes.

​

Jung believed these were innate and hereditary, representing a model image of a person that transcends language, culture and time.

​

As individuals, we can all inherently recognize and relate to the archetypes. They play a role in influencing our behavior on a subconscious level, leading to typical behavioral patterns, desires, values and motivations all driven by a single dominant goal.

​

Archetypes are distinct from personas (a word derived from Latin which means ‘mask’), which represents the image we wish to project to the outside world.

​

Our personas are consciously driven constructs which we can control, either projecting from our unconscious archetype or via external influences such as social conventions.

​

Have a look over the brands below and think about how they match with each of the archetypes and the emotions they evoke:

You must first get to know your customers and audience by asking them questions.

​

Face-to-face interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and workshops are all good ways to find out what makes them buy, how they feel when they interact with your brand, products, or services, and how they currently see your company.

​

Remember negative responses make just as valuable insights as positive ones.

​

You then need to interview your brand as if it were a live person.

​

Ask questions of it (realistically this would be the stakeholders) and the responses will enable you to identify which archetype most closely aligns with your brand.

​

Some example questions are:

• What are your values?
• Which 3 brands do you aspire to?
• Which 3 brands are enemies/opposites to your brand?
• How should you talk to your audience (tone of voice)?
• What emotions do you wish to generate within people when they interact with you?
• What adjectives best describe you?

​

Don’t forget to interview your own staff as well as customers, especially the key stakeholders. This will highlight any disparity between how your brand is perceived compared to how you feel the brand is positioned internally.

​

If this is the case a decision needs to be made as to how to move forward – do you realign your brand to an archetype as determined by your audience’s perception, or do you stick to your vision and archetype and adjust your target audience accordingly with stronger messaging and a clearer brand position.

​

Once you have identified the emotional drivers both internally and externally and understand how your brand connects to your audience, you will be able to identify which archetype most closely aligns with your brand.

​

Brand archetypes help you determine the human character traits that most accurately reflect your brand. This enables your brand to create deeper connections with your audience and customers based on strong emotional interactions.

​

They help you create an attractive force, pulling and enticing your audience to your brand via shared values, resulting in better brand perception, greater brand advocacy and a stronger, more loyal customer base.

​