Jung for breakfast: Brand Strategy Magazine attended a presentation this morning themed around the idea of archetypes and how they can help you develop your brand’s potential for emotional connection. David Erixon, director of brand strategy and manifestation in Vodafone’s global brand team talked about how a new ‘game’ created by agency Added Value helped him get on the path to developing some long term emotional equity for a brand he describes as ‘a mobile network without a personality’. The overall key objective was to get Vodafone’s steadily expanding network of local brands aligned with the global brand.
The Archetype Game, as the process of evaluating brand attributes by means of a board game type process has been called, aims to help businesses define the character of their brand and carve out tangible routes for brand positioning. Archetypes explored in the name of branding include ‘Hero’, ‘Sage’ and ‘Wise Warrior’.
Vodafone, for example, defines its global audience as consumers who are ‘progressives’. One year into playing the game and Vodafone is developing around the idea of the ‘Abstract Explorer’ archetype because it sees, formerly unexploited, richness in its history as a pioneer. (Did you know that the first 3G, just as the first mobile call, was via Vodafone?) We look forward to archetypal behaviour!
