Archetypes
- Imprints of the Unconscious
We all have archetypal patterns imprinted in our psyche and at different
times these can be more or less predominant. Looking around, you might recognise:
- the ‘salt of the earth’ regular guy
- the explorer who constantly searches for new experiences to push their
own boundaries
- the rebel with or without a cause or
- the person who always has to win.
There might even be occasions when you yourself felt driven by a need for justice,
for sex, for power or the achievement of a goal. What you may not have realized
is that these are all archetypes – basic patterns which are hard wired
into our nervous system.
The most well known and described archetypal patterns are the characters, like
Superman the Hero, or Merlin the Magician and Arthur the King.
Archetypal patterns though can also be decoded at other levels, as motivations
like the desire for pleasure, the need to avoid pain, as primal oppositions
like dark and light, good and evil or as story patterns like, fighting the evil
monster or taking a journey or doing a quest.
Power to direct how we think and act
From archetypal psychology and the study of myth and story we know that there
are common themes which re-occur across cultures and in us as people. These
reflect our experiences in dealing with the human condition and form the basis
of how we make sense of the world.
These themes echo all around us in repetitive images, icons and stories which
appear all around the world. We may not consciously recognise these patterns
but they ‘click’ subconsciously with us and so direct much of
our thinking and behaviour.
The Unconscious
and Your Brand
Archetypology seems very new
but actually embodies a timeless and eternal wisdom. 'In the battle between
unconscious motives and conscious will, the unconscious always
wins'. We all instinctively know this is true but how much attention
is paid to the unconscious when it comes to defining and understanding brands?
Are You Throwing Away Your Brands Power?
The way we see it, lots of brands throw away their power by not being clear
about the way they interact with people at an unconscious level. Consequently
they unwittingly change their unconscious messaging and so confuse, confound
and disengage their audience.
Archetypes – hard wired into our nervous system
Archetypes provide the deep structure for human experience
and as such when we encounter archetypal patterns in people, advertising,
art, literature, movies and TV they invoke a deep emotional resonance in us
which has enormous power to direct how we think and act. Which is why, brands
which leverage these archetypal patterns have a power which other brands do
not.
Without a strong system to decode archetypal signs and markers
and an understanding of the application of this knowledge to brands we have
not, until now, always been able to determine why certain aspects of brand
expression work for a brand and others do not. It can be a mystery why brand
potency is lost when brands chase cultural trends and market movements or
when new people take over the management of a brand.
A Brand Archetypology …
A Brand Archetypology defines the hidden power
of a brand. It identifies the specific patterns that your brand taps into
in the consumer psyche. It unravels the archetypal centre of gravity of your
brand so that you are in doubt as to what can be changed or adjusted in your
brand communications and what cannot.
