The problem with Brand archetypes. Let’s go! 💥
[a 2.5 minute read]

Archetypes have become toxic because the industry tries to force them to do things they can’t do.

Let me break it down:

1. Use archetypes as a starting point or exploration tool, but never as an answer or model. People will obsess over them in meeting rooms for hours, but they are a blunter instrument than that would suggest, and their creep into broader brand strategy tasks is where most of the damage happens.

2. Even used carefully, archetypes introduce dichotomies and are contaminated with oddly specific, often dated, biases. They lack nuance, reducing complex ideas and bundling them into “buckets”.

3. They offer weak analysis and, at the same time, discourage ground-breaking synthesis.

4. They create an illusion that competition falls into neat categories. Conveniently — in opposition to your choice. But competition is more nuanced than that.

5. Similar dynamics happen in other use cases. Yet, they are used to inform positioning, portfolio, brand architecture, and even plot consumer needs and segmentation.

6. Archetypes trap you in a literal meaning matrix. Each quadrant suggests a clear territory but is a multidimensional spectrum rather than a “box”. Consequently, it includes elements of other quadrants, yet the format encourages you to ignore this.

We’ve all been there. You’re on the front lines of creative or strategy, and suddenly you’re handed a piece of fluff that’s supposed to be the defining element of the brand.
A purpose statement, vision, mission, or other so-called “brand narrative” elements.

“Hey, we know this isn’t real strategy,” they say. “But the client sees it as gospel, and everyone’s already bought into it. It’s signed off. We can’t challenge it, but we don’t know what the hell it means or how to work with it.”

The first few times this happened (okay, the first few years), I struggled to hide my expression of “what the f*ck is this?”.
But I learned fast that it’s not that simple.

So, here’s what you do.
Recognize that people probably like the sentiment, even though the strategy itself got lost. Adopt a curious mindset and help them uncover the real strategy, then rearticulate it (for internal work use, at least) in a way that doesn’t obscure it.

The main quirk of brand strategy is that it’s not enough for it to be correct – it has to inspire people to follow it. Consequently, The confusion between a strategy and its articulation is the most common shortcut to bad brand strategies.

People always say, “great briefs should both direct and inspire,” but often, on the path to a brand strategy that inspires, the fluff builds up until any direction is lost.

So, here’s what I’d say to my stakeholders: “Sometimes, as insights and strategy get distilled, it becomes hard to identify the original meaning. Can you help us understand the original intention here? We’ll worry about the articulation later.”

This is the story of how a simple and ubiquitous framework threatens to break advertising.

There are many tools and frameworks across strategy, marketing, and advertising.

Have you ever noticed which ones tend to be the most popular?

Is it the smartest ones? The clearest ones? The most effective? The most validated by research?

Of course not!

The most popular ones are those which are easiest to explain and learn, and most importantly — easiest to sell. Internally to teams, and externally to clients.

Unfortunately, even simple frameworks are often not as simple as people think.

When misused – which I see happening more and more often — GTB cultivates bad work, promotes non-strategies, mismanages creative teams, and sets them and their clients up for failure. 

What’s the framework, and where does it come from?

 If you’re reading this post, you’re probably already familiar with the formula, which can usually be found lurking somewhere in creative brief documents. Some even use it instead of a brief, but more often it sits in the section summarising the creative strategy.

 There are various nuanced takes on it, but here’s the rough outline:

What’s on your list of “I can’t believe I’m still fighting this fluff in 2023!”?

Here’s mine (in no particular order):
👉Generation-focused marketing (millennials, y, z…)
👉 Brand archetypes (and most Jungian psychographics)
👉 “Start with the why” + “GrOw”schools of purpose
👉 Lovemarks (and generally “brand love” residue)
👉 Maslow (honestly!)
👉 “We’re different because we’re customer-centric”
👉 Brand frameworks that are a mashup of other frameworks
👉 Get/To/By creative briefs with no strategy in the “By” (or, often, anywhere else. Post coming soon.)
👉 “Brand is dead” (or TV is dead, or any “X is dead”)
👉 “We need to go viral.” / “create a movement” (in head: “here’s a movement. [flips the bird]”)
👉 “Marketing vs Branding”

😅

Add yours in the comments!

#marketing#brand#strategy#advertising#snakeoil

A roundup of examples before we move on.

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By now, gentle reader, you probably think I’m like that kid in The Sixth Sense. Only instead of ghosts, I see triangles.

(a visual refresh, or find the other parts on my profile)

Last time I demonstrated how the same (or similar) three win-conditions of marketing (Integrity, Relevance, Difference) show up across other advertising frameworks and brand valuation models. This time, we’re going further. From advertising to brand strategy and beyond. Starting with two of the world’s most popular marketing writers.