Finding the Emotional Focal Point of Your Brand: A Deep Dive on Brand Archetype Fundamentals

This is a version of a presentation I gave at the 2024 Seattle Interactive Conference. 

One of my favorite topics to geek out on is brand archetype theory. A thoughtfully selected archetype solves a number of brand problems I see over and over again:

• Uninspiring or generic purpose statements, like "We partner with professionals to improve lives."

• Messaging that’s all over the place, lacks emotional pull, or sounds like everybody else in your category (or, in some cases, beyond it).

• Unhelpful feedback from stakeholders who hold up a pet brand (Apple, Uber, Slack, Snowflake, Nike, etc.) as the example to emulate, which pulls you in the wrong direction because the emotional pull is different.

WHY THIS MATTERS

First, let’s touch on why having a clear emotional focal point matters. This Harvard Business Review article reports that emotionally connected customers are 52% more valuable than those who are just highly satisfied—and that translates to both revenue and profitability. As authors Scott Magids, Alan Zorfas, and Daniel Leemon put it, “Brands put billions into boosting awareness, satisfaction, and loyalty, but they often overlook the most powerful driver of customer value: emotional connection.” 

Brands who underinvest here are missing a big opportunity. And I’ve found that one of the best, most effective, and fun ways to build that strong emotional connection is with brand archetype analysis.

THE BACKSTORY

I first encountered brand archetype theory more than a decade ago, when I was leading brand and content for Cranium, a brand who did this kind of emotional connection especially well. Cranium won all kinds of awards and broke all kinds of rules and launched all kinds of top-selling games, books, and toys. It was also a pretty darn fun place to work.

Cranium also had a lot of rigor and structure behind it, which I always loved. The Cranium characters created by the artist Gary Baseman were a unique lens onto the academic theory of multiple intelligences that underpinned every product. This is how we made sure we had the unique and unexpected activity variety that was one of the brand’s hallmarks—for example, sculpting with clay, spelling backwards, humming songs. At Cranium, this meant giving everyone a chance to shine. 

The Cranium Characters helped draw players in and gave structure to every Cranium product

When Cranium was acquired by Hasbro, articulating these brand guidelines became even more important. 

They wanted to know what made a Cranium product a Cranium product, so we laid it out. 

They asked for a brand pyramid—no problem; we made one.

Then, alongside all the other brands in Hasbro’s portfolio, their agency took us through a brand archetype exercise, which was new to me.

WHAT'S A BRAND ARCHETYPE, ANYWAY?

I’ll keep this at the 30,000 foot view the agency gave us, which is that archetypes are recurring symbols that we intuitively understand. They have deep roots that go all the way back to Plato, who observed and cataloged different personality types and informed the work of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. And then, in 2001, Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson applied the theory to brands in The Hero and the Outlaw.

The 12 archetypes were all laid out in a chart that looked something like this.

A typical "color wheel" illustration of the 12 brand archetypes

You might have reactions to some of these labels, as I did, but don’t get too hung up on them. Each one is tapping into emotions that resonate with every single one of us at different times. They’re all part of our experience as humans. None are positive or negative in and of themselves. 

And these labels aren’t something you’d communicate externally anyway—they’re really shorthand to indicate the emotional focal point for a brand like Nike as the Hero, or Disney as the Magician, or Dove as the Innocent.

Next, they started categorizing Hasbro’s iconic brands, and of course this is a very deep portfolio of iconic brands.

Monopoly, Ruler.

Play-Doh, Creator.

GI JOE, Hero. You get the idea. 

And then Cranium was “placed” as a Jester, and even though I’d only been exposed to this theory for about 5 minutes, I knew in my heart that was wrong.

I got on the phone with the expert who had done the analysis, and asked him a bunch of questions about the process, and honestly I found his responses unsatisfying. I read The Hero and the Outlaw cover to cover, and I made the case for how Cranium could be a really compelling Sage—because we had that whole philosophy! About multiple intelligences! And a brain logo, for crying out loud. Or possibly a Creator. Or maybe even an Outlaw! But Jester was just way too surface and one-dimensional. 

At the time, Hasbro was a pretty hierarchical type of place (a Ruler culture, some might say), and this somehow got escalated to my boss’s boss, who decided that yes, Cranium should be Jester. 

This was, coincidentally, about when I decided that my future was founding Vitamin C Creative, and that I wanted to go a lot deeper on this archetype business. So let’s do that, and let’s start with the basics.

UNCOVERING THE CORE MOTIVATION

One thing that stood out to me in The Hero and the Outlaw is those 12 archetypes are grouped into four quadrants, which have underlying (and opposing) core motivations.

It's tempting to go right to the archetype, but starting with the underlying core motivation is key.

Top to bottom, there is Stability & Control, with the underlying fears of getting sick, or chaos, or losing all your money, with Risk & Mastery at the opposite pole, which is all about achieving, and change. 

On the left, you have Belonging & Enjoyment, which focuses on having love and community, and on the right, Independence and Fulfillment. 

This crucial detail gets minimized, or completely overlooked, in many archetype visuals. I think these core motivation quadrants add an important dimension, so I’ve developed my own materials to emphasize these groupings.

Focusing on the shared emotional territory of the archetypes adds dimension and depth

In each quadrant, three archetypes are expressing that underlying emotion in different ways. Let’s take Belonging & Enjoyment, for example. 

All are about having love and community, but the Jester does it with humor and living in the moment, the Everyperson does it through inclusion and democratization, and the Lover does it through sensual pleasure and sparking the senses.

Same core motivation; totally different vibes.

GOING DEEPER

When I learned about this model, I was instantly drawn to the Creator, but I struggled with being in the Stability and Control quadrant; which felt…less exciting, less sexy, than something like Risk and Mastery. 

But as I dug deeper, I understood that the Creator’s goal is to give form to a vision, which is everything I love about brand strategy. 

Going deeper on the Creator helped Stability & Control make sense.

The Creator's fear is uncontrolled chaos—and that definitely tracks. When I see a brand that’s lacking structure, that’s messy, that doesn’t have well-defined guidelines or boundaries, I feel it in my bones.

This deeper understanding helped illuminate why Creator makes sense in Stability and Control, and why that was exactly the right place for me to focus my own brand. 

MAKING IT CLICK

The next aha moment I had was that the “color wheel” models that use iconic brands to illustrate brand archetypes aren’t really comparing apples to apples. I have found that archetype theory really lands for people when you take something like cars, which all serve the same purpose of getting you to the grocery store and back, but make you feel a wide range of emotions as you engage with different brands.

Comparing brands from a single category helps the brand archetype model click.

I’ll call out one example in each quadrant to help demonstrate how this works. At the top, in Stability & Control, you have Volvo as the Caretaker—consider how they absolutely “own” the feeling and experience of safety. 

In Risk & Mastery, you have Tesla as the Magician (think of Tesla at its best, when you could plug in your car and it would magically learn how to park itself).

In Belonging & Enjoyment you have Mini as the Jester—I mean, how can you look at that car without smiling?

And in Independence & Fulfillment you have Leaf as the Innocent, known for its minimal environmental footprint, which also comes through in the brand identity. 

I enjoy customizing these maps to each client to help them get it in a highly relatable way. Over the years I’ve created these kinds of archetype maps for just about any topic you can imagine—Seattle coffee shops, B2B brands, celebrity chefs,  nonprofits, Napa wineries, ski apparel, and even vibrators.

A brand archetype map of Seattle coffee shops

In the realm of Seattle coffee shops, if you’re wanting Ruler vibes you should head to Voxx downtown, where you can perch on a tall stool in a mini study carrel, plug in your laptop, and feel like a boss. And in Risk & Mastery you have Sip and Ship as everyone’s favorite neighborhood hero—you can buy a Mother’s Day present and they’ll wrap it beautifully and mail it for you while you’re sipping your cappuccino. Fuel keeps it real and old-school so everyone can feel at home, while Ada’s Technical Books (paying homage to Ada Lovelace), has major Sage energy—just being in the presence of the thoughtfully curated books lining the walls makes you feel at least 30% smarter. 

Brand archetypes can apply to personalities, too!

Just to call out a few examples for celebrity chefs, you have Christina Tosi of Milk Bar as the Creator, known for her colorful works of art and imaginative inventions like cereal milk. And you have Pinky Cole, aka The Slutty Vegan, as a particularly charismatic Rebel—enough said. 

In Belonging & Enjoyment, Nigella Lawson thoroughly engages the senses as the Lover, while in Independence & Fulfillment Alice Waters embodies the Innocent with her emphasis on the freshest, most wholesome farm-to-table produce. 

Keep reading: Part 2, a step-by-step method for finding the emotional focal point of your brand.