Start With Why
People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.
Lean Into Meaning
Belonging. Purpose. Transcendence. Storytelling.
Activate Your Archetype
A brand’s meaning―how it resonates in the public heart and mind―is a company’s most valuable competitive advantage. Few companies really know how brand meaning works, how to manage it, and how to use brand meaning strategically. The most successful brands are those that most effectively correspond to fundamental patterns in the unconscious mind known as archetypes.
Carl Jung theorized that all humans share a common set of psychological symbols — shortcuts if you will — for recognizing and intuitively understanding particular types of people. He called that shared set of symbols archetypes. The twelve commonly accepted major archetypes are shown in this graphic; identifying your brand’s archetype is one of the keys to managing meaning and developing deeper connections with people. Remember: people who are aligned with your why are more likely to buy. You want to develop those deeper connections and a strong, authentic archetype is how you do that. Successful brands have known that leveraging archetypes is the shortcut to establishing brand passion for a very long time, as documented by Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson in their 2001 book, The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes.