Archetypes in Advertising

How to break through clutter? This is the question all advertisers have been thriving to answer over the decades. The consumers are bombarded with thousands of messages every day, and among all those -- how on Earth can you make your ad more appealing, persuasive, but first of all – breaking through?

From the 1950s ads “Here is our product, that’s what it does, buy it!”, advertising  has evolved into something “Here is the life you desire, just a couple of dollars away from you!” And to sell a lifestyle you have to appeal to deeper levels of people’s consciousness.

Psychological theory talks about archetypes defining and targeting which could actually help marketers in reaching the audience and engaging it more deeply into the consumption by creating an integral brand identity. If you look closely enough you'll see that a lot of brands today base their ads on universal human truths and depep-seated needs - archetypes.

"They are the most exciting tool for revitalising a brand," JWT senior planner, Vija Blumbergs said. "People get it straight away. Archetypes provide you with a strategic direction without inhibiting creativity."

According to Carl Jung and his archetypal theory, "There are forms or images of a collective nature which occur practically all over the Earth as constituents of myths and at the same time as individual products of unconscious. These are imprinted and hardwired into our psyches".
There are multiple classifications, but I ran across this interesting one highlighting 
12 archetypes most commonly used in advertising. Each archetype has three levels, with Level 1 being the simplest and least moving form of the archetype and Level 3 being the most complex and appealing:

For example, Marlboro cowboy embodies the archetype of Hero - brave and strong, confident, independent, using the strength to create power in the world. 

Persil ads play with the archetype of the Explorer, promoting slogans like "It's not a mess. It's Curiosity" and "Dirt Is Good".

Persil It's Not Mess
Watch the ad...

All in all, archetypes is a very useful tool for advertisers. However, it need to be used carefully. Some guidelines I accumulated form online creative sources:

1. Do not over-generalize. Human truth should appeal to a human, not to the whole humanity. Always think as if you are trying to reach attention of one person instead of everyone.
2. Present archetype subtle. Since it is appealing to subconsciousness, the message cannot be too loud and explicit. Leave some space for imagination.
3. All the archetypes have negative connotations. Don't concentrate on that because it's inevitable (or better say inevitably human), and people tend to associate with the positive first.

But regardless of how powerful archetypes in advertising can be, it is still hard to give brand an image that would not only be remarkable and recognizable, but also to drive sales.


REFERENCES
Advertising Archetypes (n.d.) In Active Imagination: Sports marketing agency. Retrieved from http://www.marketingforsports.com/content161.html
Crowley, S. (2007, November 14). Cut Through Advertising Clutter with Archetypes. In Creative Pro. Retrieved from http://www.creativepro.com/article/cut-through-advertising-clutter-with-archetypes
Jung, C.G. (1968) Man and his symbols. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Patterson, N. (2004, November 8). Which archetype could your brand be? In B&T. Retrieved from http://www.bandt.com.au/news/which-archetype-could-your-brand-be