This is a continuation of my deep dive on brand archetype analysis—check out Part 1 here!
In Part 1, we considered why having a clear emotional focal point for your brand is critical, why brand archetype analysis is an especially useful tool for pinpointing it, what many brand archetype models miss, and why it’s important to go deeper than the archetype names as you explore opportunities. Here, we’ll walk through a step-by-step process I have developed over many years to help you find the right archetype for your brand.
STEP 1: CONSIDER THE CATEGORY CONTEXT
Remember how in Part 1, I had such a hard time with Cranium, the beloved brand we had poured our hearts into for years, being categorized by Hasbro’s archetype “expert” as a Jester? I think what was really bothering me was that board games, as a whole, kind of take you to Jester. It’s the easy answer. It didn’t take into account how hard we had worked to do something different in that space.
Now, whenever I take a team through archetype analysis, we start by considering what implicit, or functional, associations are baked into their brand. This category context is critical to keep in mind as you determine your brand’s emotional focal point, and I created this map to show some examples of how certain brands and products naturally evoke particular archetypes.
For example, if you’re making art supplies, you’re naturally going to conjure up Creator. The same is true for beauty products promising a dramatic before-and-after transformation (Magician), fancy chocolates (Lover), or eco-friendly products (Innocent). Essentially, you get these archetypal associations for free.
As you think about your brand and your category, you can decide whether you want to stand out by doing something different, or double down to meet an unmet need.
STEP 2: FIND THE WHITE SPACE
This is why you also need to consider your competitive context. Are your competitors clustering around the “expected” archetype for your category, or is there some interesting white space that gives you an opportunity to stand out?
This is a map I created for one of my clients, Blackbird Health, who specializes in virtual-first mental health for kids and young adults.
There are some emerging players in this space, and you can see how they map out—in this case, the competitive set we identified is scattered across three of the four quadrants.
Little Otter is all about making it fun and playful and emphasizes therapy as together time (Lover). Bend taps into the Caretaker archetype. Cerebral aligns with Sage in name and intent, and Brightline with Innocent—simple and hopeful.
The clear opportunity for our client was to rise to the challenge and address this very, very difficult societal issue, the mental health crisis for our young people.
They had a really big vision, and the passion and commitment I heard from the team aligned strongly with Hero.
So, in this case, the white space aligned with an unmet need in the category: Addressing the really tough challenge of getting diagnosis and prescription right the first time. To help as many kids as they possibly can.
STEP 3: ANALYZE MESSAGING AND KEY THEMES
The next step, messaging analysis, often shows teams that they’re literally all over the map—which is extremely common as companies grow and evolve.
In this case, Blackbird Health had some natural resonance with the Hero, but also in some of the areas that their competitors were claiming.
When you do the same exercise, mapping out the themes that bubble up in stakeholder and customer feedback, it starts to become really clear where things are aligning, and where they’re not.
At Blackbird Health, analyzing the stakeholder themes demonstrated strong resonance with Hero, Sage, and Explorer. This helped us focus our discussion on what we wanted Blackbird to be known for above all else—data and continual learning (Sage), pioneering a new approach (Explorer), or solving a pressing challenge (Hero).
When we analyzed the key themes that bubbled up in customer interviews, Hero resonated even more strongly. I’ve observed that many teams shy away from the Hero. Somehow it feels arrogant, a little too “main character energy” or something. But in this case, it was truly justified. In fact, a shockingly high percentage of Blackbird Health’s customers credited the team with saving their kids’ lives. That’s a Hero in my book!
STEP 4: NARROW DOWN AND PICK ONE
Going through this kind of systematic process makes it much easier to rule out archetypes, or even whole quadrants, and narrow down to a short list of two or three that you can analyze more deeply.
There’s a lot of detail and texture and nuance behind every archetype, which is helpful for evaluating a short list of potential archetypes. In the case of Blackbird Health, we considered Sage, Explorer, and Hero as the most promising territories, but aligned around the Hero fairly quickly.
We were especially inspired by the highest levels in the Hero’s Progression, where the Hero is using strength, competence, and courage to make a difference in the world. And the trap, the thing to be careful of, is arrogance, or being ruthless. These insights helped shape the type of Hero Blackbird Health wanted to be.
STEP 5: MAKE IT YOURS
I also love the process of helping teams figure out how they’re going to bring their archetype to life. For Blackbird Health, we highlighted all the best and most resonant specs of the Hero archetype to make it specific to their brand and their business, and to be highly motivating to their team.
Your archetype can operate on multiple levels. It’s not just how you’re showing up as a brand, but how you’re making your customers and team members feel. We mapped all this out for the Blackbird Health team, so they could think about how the Hero shows up for different key audiences.
Here are four examples of brands I’ve worked with, in very different industries—everything from underground power cable rejuvenation to video game analytics—and how we brought the Hero to life in unique ways, with different points of emphasis and unique personalities.
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
The thing I will leave you with is how important it is to activate your archetype across every single touchpoint!
Earlier we touched on Nike as the Hero earlier, and this is an example of doing it incredibly well. It’s not just the things you might think of, like product naming (the Nike Victory 2) and their ad campaigns, but the purpose at the heart of everything, the types of partnerships and sponsorships they do, their career messaging, their customer service policies, and even things like having a discount for first responders and medical professionals, celebrating the heroes in our community.
READY TO DETERMINE YOUR BRAND ARCHETYPE?
I hope I’ve inspired you with some new tools to find the emotional focal point for your brand, and to ensure your archetype inspires everything you do, in a way that’s unique to you.
If you have questions or you'd like to go deeper with a custom brand archetype workshop, please reach out!
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