Last week, guests at our latest Storytelling Masterclass made themselves comfortable as Woven Agency’s Executive Creative Director, Mark Bower, talked through how it’s done. In this session we revealed how to combine the positioning power of archetypes with the commercial art of storytelling to create market cut-through, build customer loyalty, and do the most important thing of all – generate new business.
Read on for a short report from the event, and to watch the Masterclass on-demand (Walpole members only).
Millennia of humankind has left us with a collective unconscious full of ideas, narratives and characters; archetypal elements fundamental to storytelling that turn up all around the world. Chapter three of this masterclass series looks at the way brand archetypes can be used for commercial benefit — and how to embed these stories right at the heart of a luxury brand.
Brand storytelling is an essential part of any modern business – creating companies that are both profitable and captivating, with distinct personalities and narratives behind them. Within this remit, the 12 archetypes can be used in myriad interesting ways, exploring brand values and character through single archetypes as well as interplays between opposite archetypes or challenging traditional ones; a caregiver, for example, is not always ‘passive’, a hero not always bold — to give rise to compelling stories.
From here, a brand can then make use of all the jumping off points that come from exploring themselves in this new and rich context. Using archetypes means fundamentally assessing who you are as a business, not starting from the point of product. Who are you at your core, why do you exist, what is it you are trying to achieve in the world and what is your ultimate vision of success? When you talk about the ‘why’ and what drives a brand emotionally, the how and what become less significant from a messaging perspective.
As Simon Sinek notes in his TED Talk, Start with Why, great communicators don’t talk about what they do, they talk about why they do it. From the why, you move to the ‘how’ – the actions to realise the why – and then the ‘what’, the product, which is the tangible proof. With purpose and values two main drivers for today’s luxury consumer, a well-integrated brand archetype may ultimately be what differentiates a product most — giving the consumer a compelling ‘why’ via a powerful idea which engages them emotionally and rationally.
