Brand archetypes have long been a staple in the marketing toolkit. However, their usefulness has recently been called into question by some in the industry. While some find the framework a useful way of defining a business’s personality, others say it’s too reductive and puts brands into a ‘box’.
This is a particularly important question for B2B brands, which have many complexities they need to translate to prospects. So are brand archetypes still fit for purpose in B2B or is it time to reduce our reliance on Jung’s band of Jesters, Innocents, Caregivers and Rebels?
Brand archetypes are a framework which helps businesses determine their personality and key characteristics. It was developed from the theories of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, who believed people fitted into groups with common personality traits.
Determining a brand’s archetype can help businesses work out how best to build relationships with customers.
There are 12 brand archetypes in total, each with different traits and approaches:
There are a few common marketing hurdles B2B businesses face, including:
Having a strong sense of brand can help businesses overcome all these challenges. If this is something a B2B marketing team is struggling to find, then the brand archetype framework can be a helpful starting point.
When we’re working on a B2B brand development project, we’ll begin by asking teams a range of open-ended questions. These might include:
Through the answers to these questions, a brand’s personality starts to glimmer through. Our job is to capture this and make it both cohesive and compelling - and that’s where brand archetypes are so useful.
By pinning all of the ideas and thoughts into a powerful identity, brands have a foundation to build their purpose, vision and values. This will help them start to tell their brand story in a way their audience will understand. Choosing a brand archetype can also help B2B businesses decide what they are not, which can be equally as useful.
For example, when working with a large impact investment organisation, we found that their old branding had inadvertently cast them as a Caregiver. As a result, audiences perceived them as a charitable trust rather than an innovative financial pioneer. By developing an Explorer brand, we helped audiences better understand the business.
Although aligning your company with a single brand archetype is a good starting point, there may be value in taking traits from others to create a nuanced, distinct brand personality. This will better fit your brand story and create an original, fresh and authentic messaging strategy.
The 12 brand archetypes can help organisations start to craft a cohesive and coherent personality. However, some marketing experts argue that the framework is more misleading than helpful.
Carl Jung theories weren’t grounded in marketing research. Critics point out that Jung himself questioned his sanity while developing these concepts. This raises questions about the validity of applying such ideas to the world of brands.
There are only a set number of archetypes. This forces brands to squeeze themselves into potentially ill-fitting categories. The arbitrary nature of this limited selection ignores the complexity of real brands. A brand can possess multiple characteristics or evolve, making it difficult to find a single archetype that truly captures its essence.
Archetypes can lead to a one-dimentional. They focus on a single set of traits and can fail to fully capture a brand's identity. This can create inconsistencies as a brand grows or tries to connect with different audiences. For example, a brand aligned with the Rebel archetype might struggle to reconcile with supporting a social cause.
Archetypes focus on how a brand presents itself, not how it solves customer problems. This inward focus can lead to messaging that misses the mark with your target audience. Customers ultimately care more about what a brand does for them than the brand's chosen archetype.
Although brand archetypes have defining traits, it can still be difficult to find the best fit for your business. Thinking about the following factors can help you narrow down the options.
Your industry might mean you neatly fit into a particular archetype. For example, disruptor brands will naturally feel closer to the Rebel type. In contrast, healthcare businesses and charities lean into the Caregiver category.
However, for B2B brands with a complex product offering, choosing an archetype based on sector alone might not be possible. Also, choosing a less obvious archetype can help you differentiate yourself in the market.
Why does your company exist? How did it come to be? What inspires and motivates your teams? And most importantly, what problems does your business solve?
By answering these questions, you’ll be able to choose a brand archetype that’s a natural fit for your organisation and its people. It’ll also prevent you choosing a category that feels at odds with the business’s history and public persona.
Finally, it’s essential to explore what basic human needs your brand responds to, whether that’s safety, belonging, freedom or a sense of achievement. Then, you need to figure out how to tie these back to your audience’s challenges and pain points.
Ask yourself what archetype could best respond to their problems. For example, if they’re struggling with constant industry and market change, the Ruler might provide a sense of stability. If they’re a startup with a strong sense of purpose, then a Hero archetype will align to their courage and motivation.
Once we’ve helped you identify the archetype which best suits you, our team can support you to create a coherent brand voice that can adapt and evolve. To find out about how we can support your B2B marketing team, get in touch.