When using your personal branding as a front for business branding, if you want to go the distance, you must have a distinct sense of mission, vision, purpose, and loads of personality!
Having a brand personality is as essential as having a brand identity. Your brand personality is a set of personality traits that evoke a powerful connection with your audience through you and your business. People connect with others emotionally, intellectually, and behaviorally.
COMMUNICATING YOUR BRAND PERSONALITY USING ARCHETYPES :
If you recognize these actors above, you already understand archetypes.
Sandra Bullock, Jane Fonda, Matthew McConaughey, Kevin Hart, Oprah Winfrey, Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lopez, Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Alba, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Tyler Perry are all household names —each one has a "PUBLIC MAGE."
Whether or not you are a fan of any of them is not the point. The point is that you feel like you know them, and the people who are their raving fans all instinctively feel that they understand them and have a powerful attachment they can’t quite explain.
There’s a reason for all that.
ARCHETYPES
Big brands use them; famous actors with businesses use them, and so should YOU!
Archetypes are distinct from personas (a word derived from Latin, which means ‘mask’🎭) — representing the "IMAGE" we project.
Psychologist Carl Jung developed the concept of archetypes.
Archetypes are simply a pattern of behavior.
Carl Jung called archetypes “fundamental units of the human mind.”
We intuitively ‘get’ archetypes.
We can all inherently recognize and relate to the archetypes.
Archetypes help us meet on the same page with a resounding, “Oh, I get you.”
When Jung first identified these archetypes, he looked at people, not brands. His research Jung expanded the idea of our unconscious to a “collective unconscious, a place filled with shared behaviors, human instincts, and familiar stories and symbols.
It's within this “collective unconscious that we find Jung’s 12 Archetypes.
Jung developed these archetypes when he kept finding them over and over again in stories. These character types—like a ‘hero,’ a ’jester,’ or a ‘lover’—felt familiar on an instinctual level, transcending language, culture, and history. Jung applied these simplified characters to human psychology to understand how individuals might see themselves and their place in the world.
WHY ARCHETYPES MATTER IN BRANDING AND MARKETING?
Just like all the actors above use archetypes in their branding and marketing in the businesses, we all have a story we tell about ourselves, and this story revolves around a core motivation that influences our behavior, our desires, and our values. Jung’s archetypes have since been used in psychology to help individuals identify their core motivations and better understand why they think and act the way they do. When we see ourselves in an archetype, we tap into that collective unconscious that we share with others, and we can better connect and communicate with the people around us.
Nearly all brands have a primary brand archetype or persona that they align with. These universal, human stories are ideas that everyone can relate to and understand. Strong brands align themselves with a primary brand archetype that helps guide their behavior.
Our brain unconsciously intercepts these messages when we encounter certain universal behaviors or personalities. Based on our core desire and personality, we instinctively choose to connect with that person or avoid them.
Archetypes matter in branding and marketing because branding and marketing is all about connecting to people who evaluate their needs and your brand’s ability to deliver on them.
When you apply personality, a tone of voice, and an outlook on life within your brand strategy —all the features of an archetype, allows you to create a perception of your brand, aligning its brand’s behaviors and communication with the deep and unconscious desires of your core clients/customers.
CONSIDER A HYBRID BRAND ARCHETYPE-BASED STRATEGY
Archetypes help you assess the competition and find your position in the landscape. Even though two coaches might seek to solve the same problem, they can do so with different personalities and, in turn, connect with different consumer audiences. Even within the same business, different archetypes can help reach different audiences.
Using brand archetypes helps you make "well-informed" + "educated decisions" based on psychological cheat codes that paint a picture of the universal expression of behavior and communication and enable you to create an image that sets your brand apart from the competition by instilling your humanity into your mission, vision and values.
You may not be an actor, but "All The World's A Stage" is not just a famous monologue from William Shakespeare's comedy "As You Like It" — it's a fact of life now — For all brands but especially if you're you are a coach, consultant or run a service- based business and your using your personal branding as a front for business branding. Every time you post or comment — just like the actors above, you are "presenting your image" to the public, and your audience is forming a perception of you and your business. — you'll need to have a strategy before get on stage.
When your audience uses the pre-wired receptors in their brains that “fit” the shape you give your brand personality (part of your brand identity ), they will feel like they know your brand in the way they know a famous person. It will just "make sense to them". And they, too, feel a powerful attachment 💏 that they can’t quite explain.
When your audience trusts you, they trust what you recommend… they want your business solutions.
Four motivational categories:
At the heart of each archetype is a core motivation. Motivation is important because that’s what will resonate with your target – it’s the ‘why,” not the “what.”
Understanding the WHY behind your communication style of choice is essential for your brand strategy.
To simplify the process of identifying your brand personality, archetypes can be divided into four categories based on brand motivation.
The four motivations are: to create a better world, to leave a mark, to connect to others and to provide structure.
WONDERING HOW TO CAPITALIZE ON YOUR
ARCHETYPE?
Unless you have already created your brand strategy, you will need to dig down until you can get to your motivation: (The reason for your brand existing).
Using Brand Archetypes, build a clear picture in your customers’ minds and differentiates your brand and messaging from others in the same market niche. Which is why I use brand archetypes as a brand positioning and marketing tool when creating Brand Strategies for my clients.
Once you understand what your brand archetype mix is (you are usually more than one), strategies become much easier to improve and implement. As a result, marketing becomes much simpler because archetypes guide how your brand interacts with your audience.
However if you don't have a brand strategy yet, I don't want you to miss out, so I have created a FREE Brand Archetype Guide!
In it, I show you real-life examples— like how Jennifer Aniston uses her "The Good Friend Archetype" to brand and market her "LolaVie Haircare Line. (I believe you will relate to actual people rather than the brands like "Apple and Nike or fictional characters used in all the other brand archetype wheels out here).
This guide will teach you how too can use your own blend of archetypes for marketing your brand in a way that makes it easier to reach the ones you want by effectively connecting with them using emotions and behaviors —like no other!
If you want to start this exciting journey, click here to get the FREE DOWNLOAD TODAY!
