Designing Brand Personality Using the Power of Archetypes ...

2.1.2 Non-traditional Processes
Increasing disappointment with traditional customer research is causing greater
tolerance of non-traditional ideas and making it more acceptable to talk about
archetypes in mainstream business. Growing interest in archetypes signals a
major transformation in marketers‟ attitudes about the misty regions behind the
curtains of consciousness. Everyone is looking for new answers.
With functionality, reliability, convenience, or price no longer sufficing for
differentiation, brands must compete on meaning. The best way to create “emotional
affinity” through meaning is to use archetypal images to fulfil basic human desires or
motivations and evoke deep emotions. 1 The narratives and meanings behind
archetypes let customers relate to brands by making brands seem alive.(Pearson and
Mark 2001)
Very common methods for assessing brand personality are currently analogies (by
qualitative depth interviews), drawings or free association. 2 A visual tool based
research is one of possible ways how to determine the right brand personality.
(Schoormans 2009) suggests that by visualizing and image presentation of main
personality traits we can avoid deviations in interpretations of the verbal concepts.
Especially compared with verbal language, visual image represents the information
consisting of spatial, non-arbitrary and continuous characteristics.
Gradually, a selected group of applicants chooses the most fitting images to the
associations of the company. The aim is to develop not one, but more personalities for
the brand: valid view on the brand personality of the own brand, on an ideal brand
personality for the brand, on the brand personality of competitors and on the brand
personality as seen by customers.
Next, (Riesenbeck and Perrey 2007) used the Gameboard Model proposed by
McKinsey. It is designed to map the celebrities and the brand portfolios in a certain
category to highlight affinities. (see Figure 2 and further description in the section 4)
1 For the definition of archetypes ,see the section 3.
2 The methods are discussed in more detail in section 4.
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