12 Brand Archetypes Revealed!

In this blog post, we are going to discuss Jungian archetypes and give answers to the main question about them, show 12 archetypal personality characters, and provide you with real-life examples.

What is a brand archetype?

At the beginning of the 20the century, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung has developed the theory of universal archetypes. The word “archien” means the original, and the word “typos” mean model, type. So the word archetype means the original pattern. Archetypes manifest the roots of human motifs of doing something. If somebody does a bad thing, we can see it in archetypes, or someone falls in love, in the archetypes we can look for descriptions of the motifs of the person.

12 archetypes are developed by Karl Jung and it is a long time that marketers have been using it in branding.

Why use brand archetypes?

Since there is a bunch of competition in every market, marketers have been struggling to find a way out of the chaos. What is the way out of it? They take one of the archetype characters and are glue it to their brands. One of the famous examples is Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola took the Innocent archetype and attached it to its campaigns and products.
What does the innocent archetype provide to Coca-Cola brand?
The authentic joy for every moment. “Feel the moment” the quote is very common for Innocent archetype brands.

We see that their campaigns are about Christmas, World Cup or other emotional events. With Innocent archetype the brand provides various messages about perfection and the happy moments with the loved ones. They have opened the full capacity of the archetype Innocent.

Every successful brand has implemented the strategy of 12 brand archetypes. We need to take just 8 steps for completing archetypal branding with the following book.

1. Find out your brand archetype.
2. Create a logo.
3. Do the packaging.

Here Are The 12 Archetypes.

1. The Lover – Stay With Me Forever.

The lover wants to be in an intimate relationship with people. It has fears of being alone and unwanted. So in order to be loved  The Lover tries to be more and more attractive. The archetype sometimes fails because it overdoes of pleasing others which end up losing their identity.
What lover values are beauty, sensuality, and love. The weapons of the lover are passion appreciation and gratitude.

Chanel Is A Famous Brand Of The Lover Archetype.

In this Instagram post, we see the color of light pink across the video. I see the intimate relationship between the woman and the creme. Between the creme and the purse. The video keeps replaying showing the same actions all the time how the woman puts the creme in her purse. The post name is (Channel in my hands) – a typical lover quote. It is also written (the most irresistible of hand creme). Another story about Lover Archetype.

2. The Innocent – Live the life with full of optimism.

Innocent is full of a never-ending optimism. It has the goal of being happy. It hates doing something bad that leads to punishment. The weapons of innocent are faith and optimism. It always tries to do the right things. Innocent is surrounded with perfections, predictability and certainty.

Dove – The famous Innocent Archetype Brand Example.

The bird Dove itself is synonymous with optimism and innocence. In the Twitter post, The girl has written on the wall a lot of wishes, and there are also little hearts and the brand logo. In other words marketers represent faith and optimism. With the #girlcollective campaign, Dove wants to raise the self-esteem of girls and women.

3. The Sage – The truth will be revealed by knowledge.

Sage always seeks for the truth. It has one goal of understanding the world by using its intelligence and is feared of being misled and ignored. What the sage tries to do all the time is looking for information and knowledge and sometimes sage can study the issues forever and never act. With its wisdom and intelligence the following archetype values learning, expertise and process of research.

Quora – The famous Sage Brand Archetype Example.

Quora is sage, nobody doubts the fact. Their Twitter page is full of questions and answers. Their main quote on Twitter is – A place to share knowledge and better understand the world.
Discover the truth with sage, with Quora!

4. The Everyman – Everybody has the same opportunities.

What everyman aims to do is connecting with others, belonging to them and fitting in. Sometimes it is afraid of standing out and being rejected as a result.
It tries to develop ordinary virtues and sometimes is trapped by losing itself for only being in the community. With it gifts of realism and lack of pretense it values affiliation, democracy, equality.

Levi’s – The famous example of Everyman archetype.

What I see here is the Everyman walking in the streets of a city just like she likes to do so every day. An everyday girl, with everyday jeans and a retro Mercedes Benz in behind. This is daily life and in comments, it is written (Acting like its Saturday on a Sunday). A quote that generalizes the Everyman archetype.

5. The Jester – Life is boring, let’s have a fun.

Jester tries to feel the moment with full enjoyment. Because of the fear of boredom Jester wants to have a great time and lighten up the world. Sometimes it is trapped by getting nerves of somebody, but it always plays, makes jokes and remains funny as it values fun and humor.

M&M’s – The famous example of Jester archetype.

What do we see here?
The Yellow color which is synonymous to Joy. And there are very Great Jester quotes. M n M’s will make you happy, it will end with a yummy bite. M n M’s will lighten the world of any girl. Jokes about bae are all over the promotions. Yeah, that’s pretty funny!

6. The Magician – Dreams have a habit to come true.

The magician tries to find out the fundamental laws of how the universe works. It has a strategy of developing a vision and living it and is feared of unanticipated negative consequences. With personal transformation and self-improvement, it makes dreams to come true. It has an ability of finding win-win situations.

Polaroid – The famous example of Magician archetype.

Polaroid gives magic to people. And in this video it is clearly shown.
An artificial 3D pumpkin is made for Halloween party. The video shows the whole process of creating the pumpkin. Very funny and interesting, but in reality – It’s a magic!

7. Explorer – Find freedom with exploring.

Explorer seeks freedom by exploring the world to find himself. What explorer wants is a more fulfilling and authentic life and is feared of inner emptiness and conforming. He always goes for journeys to experience new things in order to escape the boredom. The Explorer has a real autonomy and always stays true to himself but sometimes finds himself in aimless wandering.

Patagonia – The famous example of Magician archetype.

Wait, what does this guy do?
He discovers, he finds freedom.
Why their Instagram is full of exploring images with famous people climbing mountains, going places nobody was before?
It is the Explorer. Finding out the new world, discovering yourself by finding out the unfound. Instead of advertising their equipment, they have decided to emphasize the idea of exploration.
This is their brand archetype – The Explorer.

Do The Branding Of Your Products On Your Own With The Following Ebook. It Gives You The Following Solutions.

1. Find out the archetype of your brand with a 12 question quiz.
2. Create a slogan and brand messaging.
3. Create the logo, packaging, store appearances.

8. The Hero – Prove yourself with mastery.

The hero is always courageous and proves itself with different hard actions.
It tries to become strong, competent and powerful in order to improve the world. It fears of being weak and vulnerable but at the same time, it can be courageous and competent. Though sometimes it is arrogant and creates anti-hero personas it values energy, discipline, focusing and ambitiousness.

FedEx – The famous example of Hero archetype.

When I recall FedEx it is either a Van like this or an airplane. The same stories we find on their Instagram. A van that is always there to provide the parcel to you. That will help you whenever you need it. What we see here is the image of a hero FedEx vans.

9. The Outlaw – Break all kinds of laws.

What outlaw desires is a revolution. And it has the goal of destroying the things that don’t work. Sometimes its fears of being powerless and inconsequential and does everything to shock and destroy. Outlaw can be easily trapped by criminality. It likes radical freedom and disregards the general standards by seeking the experience of power.

Harley Davidson – The famous example of Outlaw archetype.

Military-style is the outlaw archetype style. Harley has greatly managed to brand itself under military weapons and motor covers. This aggressive style of bike is very attractive. Their twitter page is full of these kinds of images.
Do not take the ordinary way, think out of the box, be the outlaw with Harley Davidson.

10. The Caregiver – Your health is important for me.

What caregiver seeks is protecting people from bad things. It tries to help others with compassion and generosity. It values caring about others, stability and empathy, altruism. It is feared of selfishness and ingratitude and sometimes is trapped by self-martyrdom.

Johnson & Johnson – The famous example of the Caregiver archetype.

Johnson & Johnson cares!
Yes, they really do so, they care about the environment, people, about various diseases, about poverty. Johnson & Johnson has created a caregiver brand with its full depth. This picture is their twitter cover.

The lion’s picture is about nature care, another is against poverty, the 3rd one is about healing people with medicine. And the last one is about the children of the world, the most precious thing.
Does John Johnson care?
Yes of course!

11. The Creator – Make your visions come true.

Creator wants to create something with eternal value and it gives forms to its visions. The following archetype develops a culture with own vision and is afraid of mediocre skills. It always increases its artistic skills longing for perfection. With its creativity and imagination Creator goes for self-expression, real innovation, and beauty.

Pinterest – The famous example of Creator archetype.

Pinterest is made for creators, people who are inspired and want to make something interesting. In this Twitter post, there are items for creating, drawing, cutting with scissors, making interesting shapes, etc. Creator Pinterest gives an opportunity to anybody to show their talents, no matter what type of talent it is, the important thing is that it should be creative.

12. The Ruler – Be responsible. be powerful.

Ruler seeks an authority in order to create a successful company, community,
It goes for leadership and sometimes is trapped by being too bossy.
It is afraid of 2 things 1. being overturned 2, chaos.
The ruler is powerful and responsible and it takes control with leadership and responsibility.

Mont Blanc – The famous example of Ruler archetype.

In this post on Instagram Mont Blanc talks about meaningful luxury.
The ambiance in the photo is classical. They have been honored #honorfabour2018 and they try to show their high style and quality and manage to do that.

How to use brand archetypes?

For using the archetypal tactics we should try to reveal the archetypes with its depths, understand messages and situational challenges of every archetype. Getting into the great world of archetypes gives marketers many opportunities to act, to create, to engage customers.

We give different values to people with Karl Jung’s theory which increases the level of our identity and authority. It enters the thoughts of our product users and eventually makes them really loyal customers.

Just remember once we are determined what is your brand archetype, the next action is sticking to it very firmly, do not use plenty of archetypes on the same product as it can be a threat to lose the identity.
How a product is different from the other one? Because of an identity.
What gives the brand a real identity?
The Jungian archetype, of course!

Last thoughts.

Any Marketer just needs to examine the archetype very closely in order to have better branding associations.
Archetypes give us keys that can open many doors. These are real weapon for creating a brand identity and are a precious filter not to be mixed up with other brands. With this key we stay firmly in competition, our customers praise our brand and stay loyal as it provides a static value.

And what is important in branding?

The Value of a brand. Keep your value clean and comprehensive in order to gain more and more followers and loyal customers.

What is your brand archetype?

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