Defining Your Voice

Oftentimes businesses get tangled up in the question “What is my brand?”. Creating the perfect brand that encapsulates your ideals, morals, and visions, is crucial for developing a great customer-brand relationship. 

Having a good brand is a sign of having a healthy company. When this happens you are able to put out there the perfect message for your target audience and for your employees. They will be able to understand exactly what you do and what the values of your business are making it easier for them to develop a loyal relationship with your brand.

Setting up what the values of your business are is extremely important because they are a reflection of the message your brand gives to people. This helps you put out a strong message that helps people believe it along with you. 

When a brand is consistent and represents your people accurately, your customers understand how to interact with them. Your brand is the gateway to the interactions with your customers and helps you build that perfect relationship. 

All of this can be done intentionally and harmoniously by putting together an archetype. 

What Are Archetypes? 

Carl Jung came up with the idea that there are 4 essential desires that all people have and there are 3 strategies for achieving each desire. 

So he came up with a total of 12 archetypes (If you want to learn more, check out Deksia’s blog post about the most common brand archetypes)

1. The hero
2. The lover
3. The creator
4. The everyman
5. The caregiver
6. The royal
7. The caregiver
8. The innocent
9. The sage
10. The explorer
11. The outlaw
12. The magician 

Archetypes help you tell the story by giving you a voice that helps you be consistent when telling your message. 

Believe it or not, we use archetypes in our everyday lives all the time! Archetypes are inherent to our human condition and we use them to make sense of people and know how to adapt to different social situations.  

Just like we use these archetypes in our everyday lives, businesses should adopt them as part of their brand strategy. This helps brands have an emotional connection with your client because when you know what kind of archetype you are you will use the right voice to direct the perfect message to the perfect people

This creates a path of consistency and starts to align with all the different moving parts of your brand and have a clear call to action.  

Pros of Living Out the Right Archetype

Just because we have narrowed down what path for finding the perfect brand archetype, it doesn’t mean that you will choose the right one. It is important for you to be honest with yourself and have a clear understanding of who your brand is in order to align with the perfect archetype. 

For example, Wrangler Jean’s brand archetype is undoubtedly The Everyman. It is a brand that can relate to the average Joe and that is exactly what makes them so accessible to people. Calvin Klein, on the other hand, is more of The Lover archetype, they appeal to a much greater romantic feeling that attracts a different kind of audience. 

Wrangler Jeans tried changing up their archetype to be more aligned to that of Calvin Klein, needless to say, that this was a failure. Despite their product quality being the same, customers could see through the inconsistency between their products and their brand messaging. It was a no brainer for them to go back to their original roots. 

Examples of brands lining up perfectly with their archetypes are Stella Artois and Bud Light. Despite both brands being part of the same industry and essentially being competitors, they are still brands that are relevant and have a clear message for their designated audience. 

Stella Artois knows that they are more of The Ruler archetype. They are confident and set the rules for the game. While Bud Light appeals more to the everyday man, hence their archetype The Everyman. These two brands have chosen the perfect archetype to deliver the perfect message to the specific target audience of their dreams. This is why they are so successful in their own way. 

When you pick the wrong archetype that is not authentically who you are, you put all the resources into the wrong marketing strategy. Your customers will be able to figure out how your brand doesn’t match your intentions which leads to a broken relationship. 

This is why picking the right archetype to deliver the perfect message, which ultimately leads to a harmonious and holistic brand message. 

Archetypes ≄ Stereotypes or Boxes

Now we know that you might be thinking that the archetypes that we have presented to you sound just like stereotypes, but you are wrong. Stereotypes lack depth and are simple ideas based on wrong assumptions. Archetypes go past the initial stereotype and help you understand the world around you. 

You should also not mistake archetypes with being put in a box. Boxes feel constricting and instead of helping you grow as a brand, they stop you from developing your brand. Archetypes do the complete opposite of this! They actually help you get out of the box by giving you the right characteristics and features to help you grow as a brand. With the right archetype, you will gain knowledge about your most authentic voice which will allow you to expand the message you are trying to share. 

Conclusion

Realizing that your brand should identify with a specific brand archetype in order to have the right voice will be a game-changer for your business. 

Consistency is key, and this is what the archetypes do in your favor. They allow you to create a consistent voice that aligns perfectly with your values to create the perfect message. 

Once you have a clear direction for your brand all your marketing efforts will not go to waste. All of a sudden all the moving parts of a marketing strategy will start to make sense not only to you but also to your customers. 

Check out the video below to dive deeper into the brand archetype world from one of our experts at Deksia.