ISSUE 05

Brands As People: Humanising Brands

In June’s newsletter Brands As People: The Importance Of Establishing A Memorable Brand Personality we emphasized the significance of humanizing brands; this edition delves into comprehending a brand inside out and effectively applying it throughout your identity.?

Understanding your brand's core values, personality traits, and unique selling points allows you to align your business strategy and outputs to create a consistent and authentic experience. One of the critical steps in bringing your brand to life is defining your brand's archetypes. It strengthens your strategic brand decisions and fosters a compelling narrative and emotional connections, creating recognition and trust. So how does one go about defining their archetype?

Understanding Your Brand Inside Out

A comprehensive understanding of your brand involves analyzing your vision, position, personality, purpose, values, benchmarks, and target audience. It's crucial to ask probing questions that uncover your brand's purpose, the problems it addresses, the unique solutions it brings, and the underlying reason for its existence. These inquiries provide valuable insights into your brand's essence, allowing you to determine the "what" and "how" more effectively. Understanding your brand's purpose and values sets the stage for crafting a solid Brand DNA, which is the foundation for your brand's personality.

This Brand DNA enables you to communicate your essence consistently and aligns all stakeholders within your business. With a deep understanding of your brand's essence, you can make strategic decisions and create impactful brand experiences. It helps you develop a brand identity that resonates with your audience, differentiates you from competitors, and aligns with your core values. Ultimately, this understanding unlocks your brand's full potential and leads to long-term success.

Mastering The Archetypes

A critical step toward captivating your brand's target audience is building an authentic brand narrative and presence. Pairing it with your brand's unique archetype and translating it into actionable strategies will allow your brand's unique positioning to impact the market.?

A brand archetype represents a set of 12 universal characters that define behavioural patterns, desires, values, and motivations. By effectively portraying your brand's values, core messaging, mission, and services through human traits, you become more relatable to your audience, differentiating yourself from competitors and fostering a transparent brand identity.

To determine the archetype that best aligns with your brand, ask yourself questions like If your brand were a person, what type of person would it be? How would it look and sound? What causes would it champion and care about? Explore the descriptions of the 12 brand archetypes to identify the one that resonates with your brand the most. Embracing your brand archetype brings consistency, depth, and a distinct personality to your brand, strengthening its connection with the audience and driving long-term success.

Additionally, it represents the fundamental values, beliefs, and purpose that your brand stands for, shaping its identity and influencing your audience's perception. For example, while your services may portray you as a "caregiver," your strategy may align more with that of an "outlaw," embodying a rebellious and unconventional approach to challenging the status quo. Discovering and embracing your brand archetype helps define your brand's personality and guides your marketing efforts.

Is your brand human enough?

In conclusion, by humanizing your brand and leveraging the chosen archetype effectively, brands can enhance and engage their authenticity on a deeper level and foster lasting connections. This approach enables brands to stand out in a crowded marketplace, differentiate themselves from competitors, and cultivate a memorable and relatable brand identity. Moreover, defining the brand's appearance, sound, touch, language, and even smell adds symbolic meaning to every brand element, setting the stage for creating a cohesive and compelling brand experience. Remember, to truly bring the chosen archetype to life, it is essential for brands to not only identify themselves as human but also embody those human qualities through their actions.

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