What is Your Story?

Create a great Brand Story with the Power of Archetypes

Brands are as much a part of our daily lives as our workplaces and neighborhood landmarks.

Big, enduring stories become icons – not just of corporations but of whole cultures or social movements.

Today the brand story is a repository, not merely of functional characteristics, but of meaning, value and desired behaviors. But if we are to identify and effectively leverage the essential elements, or ‘immutables’ of our brand stories, we must become fluent in the visual and verbal storytelling of archetypes.

The creators of great brand stories have intuited this simple truth. For example, superstars in the film and entertainment industry and the agents who manage them, understand that their continued popularity does nog hing simply on the quality or success of the films they make or the visibility they attain. Rather, it depends on creating, nourishing and continuously reinterpreting a unique and compelling identity or ‘meaning’. Madonna changes her lifestyles and hairstyles,  but she is always the outrageous Rebel. Offscreen and on.

These identities are not only consistent – they are compelling. Love them or hate them, you can’t help but notice them. In fact, we cannot help but be mesmerized by who they are and what they implicitly stand for.  It is the deeper archetypal meaning that keeps people tuning in.  Stories that really grip public attention always have an archetypal quality. When the next big story breaks we’ll all be caught again, because each story that so mysteriously grabs us is some verson of  ‘Once upon a time …’ – a mythic tale acted out in real life.

What is an archetype?  “The concept of archetypes was borrowed by Jung from classic sources, including Cicero, Pliny and Augustine. Adolf Bastian called them ‘Elementary Ideas’. In Sanskrit, they were called ‘subjectively known forms’ and in Australia, they were known as ‘the External Ones of the Dream’. – Joseph Campbell, the Hero with a Thousand Faces 

Similarly, films that are box office hits almost always have archetypal structures. Sometimes the writer, director and producer simply intuit the archetype. Sometimes they are guided by a conscious system. The Star Wars series – as well as spin-off action figures and other product – holds endless appeal. In making these films, George Lucas has been guided by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which outlines all the rich and evocative stages of the Hero’s Journey. The popularity of each episode is derived in large part from the way Lucas consciously crafts the entire series to convey archetypal characters and mythic plots.

 

Products grab – and keep – our attention for the same reason: They embody an archetype.  Nike, the winged goddess was associated with victory, as is the brand that bears her name.

What is Your Story? is an inspiring and one-of-a-kind experience that has an immediate impact on your business effectiveness.

Join us for a truly transformational vacation for the mind.

You can have a preview of What is Your Story? on a special website here