Customer Reviews

The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

For those marketers who have always had a secret predilection for using their intuition, who've harbored a belief in the hidden power of the right 'fit' in a message - The Hero and The Outlaw reads like a long, drawn-out ahhhhhhhh. Like scratching an itch. Like constant light bulbs going off in your brain, one after another. It drives to the central question behind all the 'buzz' about branding - in what exactly, and where exactly, resides the buried power of a brand? What is its hidden deep source? How come a brand 'pushes our buttons?'

The simple, graceful and very fitting answers are given by Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson in their new book The Hero and The Outlaw - Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes. When a brand taps into one of their twelve major archetypes, and does so in a way that feels right and appropriate, then the brand 'works.' Consumers respond, a channel of understanding is opened, the message is received.

The twelve archetypal categories which Pearson and Mark use for their analysis are: Creator, Caregiver, Ruler, Jester, Regular Guy/Gal, Lover, Hero, Outlaw, Magician, Innocent, Explorer, Sage. For instance: Williams-Sonoma is a 'creator' brand, and so is going to carry meaning and resonance for consumers who want to craft something new in their lives. Ivory Soap is the 'purest' example of the Innocent archetype. And if Nike is a Hero brand, you can be sure that the Harley-Davidson brand is an Outlaw archetype.

While all the right brain, intuitive marketers are delighted to consider such a workable and insightful way of thinking about branding, rest assured, their more left brain associates have not been 'left' behind. In an wonderfully holistic way, the archetypal wisdom of Jungian author Carol Pearson is met, like yin with yang, in the rigor, testing and real world measurements of Margaret Mark during her 16-year career at Young & Rubicam's senior levels. Like a one-two punch, Pearson and Mark support intuition with quantitative reason, and round out data with connected imagination.

I learned from this book. Advertisements look different to me now, and I can better perceive when a brand is being true to its self and effective in its message (and sometimes, I now know why). Pearson and Mark's idea that using archetypal patterns can be a more morally responsible way of branding, is a small but intriguing thought, offered almost parenthetically.

Very few business books lead me to what feels like an 'epiphany.' (Tom Peters' Search for Excellence did when I first read it in 1989; so did Sally Helgesen's The Female Advantage in 1990, and Margaret Wheatley's Leadership and the New Science a few years ago.) To me, this book feels as though it contains the same sort of breakthrough thinking, but in terms of how to communicate, with power, in an information-saturated world. I highly recommend it. [475 words]

Cathy Brillson ...the idea farmer

ideafarm@rcnchicago.com

I was disappointed by the lack of rigorous thinking in this book.

Sure, different companies have different personalities and personality is part of the brand. We could even create our own set of Jungian archetypical brand personalities, and go about attaching them to different brands.

But now for a test. Is Coca Cola a Creator -- helping inspire its users to do great bubbly things? Is it a Caregiver -- showing care for others? Maybe it's a Ruler -- a tough competitor and long the top dog in Cola Wars? How about a Jester -- always at the center of a good time? Or just it's just the drink for Regular Guys and Gals? Look at the ads -- maybe its a Lover or at least a drink for Lovers sharing a soda with two straws? Or, how about an almost Heroic presence, again from ads? Sometimes, it has a sort of Outlaw feel (with folks like Mean Joe Greene playing Robin Hood handing a Coke to a kid). In the old days Coca Cola ads praised it both for giving energy and a calming effect -- though there's no archetype for either of those. So, maybe it is more a Magician -- think of some of those magical ads past and animated present and its ability to give both energy and calm the soul. Given Coca Cola's global ubiquity and appeal, it might well be the drink of Explorers. It might even be (given the caffeine) the energy drink for yuppie Sages? Well, it turns out (according to the authors), that Coke is clearly so successful because it's an "Innocent." The toughest competitor in the Cola Wars, a mixture of caffeine, water, and sugar, almost wizened from a century of success -- yeah, it's clearly an Innocent and that explains everything.

My point is that the book lacks any sense of rigor, proof, or science-like basis in fact. The authors do a clever job of retrofitting achetypes to brands, and several of the cases are interesting, but the whole thing appears to work better in hindsight than proven principles for brand success. One could equally well, in this reviewers opinion, talk about aligning your brand with top-rated TV shows, Tarot cards, signs of the Zodiac, or (with at least a tiny bit of science) Myers-Briggs personality types --- "proving" the case with stories about how GE, Toyota, Google, etc. etc. all fit some stellar or personality pattern.

The kernel of truth in the book is that people like their brands, products, and companies to have a predicatable, attractive, and aspirational subtext. Creating an enduring and attractive personality makes sense, at least as long as the personality remains relevant.

Speaking of personalities, what's the Jungian archetype for the Maytag repair man? Is he a Regular Guy, sidekick to a Hero, or a Jester? Is the Ultimate Driving Machine (BMW) a Hero or an Explorer . . . with maybe the 3 Series for Regular Guys and Gals with higher aspirations than Honda and Toyota owners? No doubt the authors could tell us, though I doubt their hindsight would be of much value in predicting past or future business success.

What might be of value to some readers, especially those who think Jung had the last meaningful words on human decision making, is that some structure (almost any structure, even the Yellow Pages or TV guide) can be useful in brainstorming product and brand alternatives.

...he could not have written a more interesting treatise on the subject of branding. It is the single most interesting book on advertising that I have ever read.

(And I'm a bonafide nerd, folks...I've read plenty!)

This book marries one of the most fundamental elements of psychology to market positioning and brand strategy. Using the Jungian archetypes, the authors simplify the development of solid brands. They are replete with wonderful illustrative examples. Since the archetypes are subconscious, it has been difficult for us as marketers to understand how they operate in brand development and giving meaning to brands. The authors offer a very simple method to analyze the brand's archetype and where it fits within the competitive product category.
Even if you are not a marketing person, you will enjoy reading the archetypes, trying to figure out what most appeals to you personally - and no surprise those are usually your favorite brands.
Well written and calls upon many ancient and modern authors who understand how people behave and why.

When you think of Apple Computer, does the image of "The Rebel" come to mind? If authors Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson are right, these archetypes should spring to your mind as part of the identification of these brands. The authors assert that people think in a certain subliminal way about companies based on the characteristics of archetypal personalities. Your company, they say, should define the archetype that fits its culture (is your firm an "Explorer" or an "Innocent?") and consistently brand its products accordingly. While they quote people seldom seen in business books "Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell "they insist that their ideas are practical and profitable. If you are an executive who wonders what to do to make your brand stand out, we at recommend this book to you.

Heros and Outlaws should be a new marketing classic. Among the dozen or so marketing books I have read in the past year, this one ranks highest. Don't go searching for just one "kernel" in this book, you will want to read every word. Heros helped me, as an entrepreneur, begin to re-position my twelve year-old firm. I feel fortunate to have read it before I began the redesign of my company's web site. If you like Joseph Campbell's work, this book will help you translate those concepts into marketing your firm. I am recommending it to the local university's head of the marketing department as an auxiliary text.

Behind every great brand is a great story. The authors explain, quite eloquently, how marketers can make their brands or products invincible by discovering the "soul" of their brands, and then expressing that soul in ways that tap into universal stories or "archetypes." It's the case studies (Nike, Ivory etc) that bloat this interesting but overdrawn idea into a book, but if you don't mind a used copy, I'd recommend this on a brand manager's desk.

Lord of the Rings. That was the first thing I thought of when I read the synopsis about The Hero and the Outlaw.

I was somewhat doubtful about their premise, I must admit. Archetypes are powerful and they sell, undoubtedly, but that's for books and movies. But marketing?

Yet, books and movies are marketed and sometimes quite successfully. Steven King. Tom Clancy. Star Wars.

So, perhaps interweaving some of Jung's ideas and marketing is not such a bad idea, after all.

When I combined these very ancient concepts with some of the more modern strategies suggested in Michael levine's Guerrilla pR: Wired, I did see an impact.

Perhaps, despite claims to the contrary, we should not look to the future for marketing success, but to the past, for ideas that have a proven track record as ageless and as timeless as our dreams.

Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson have wrote a book combining archetypal, mythic figures with modern day marketing. There are many time-tested concepts behind the consumer products we buy and use everyday. At times, we may feel a connection to a product because it's association has been in our archetypal consciousness for many years.

One criticism I have is the book gets into a little too much detail about specific projects and study methods. This happens when the authors talk about clients they have worked with. I don't mean the book is one long advertisement for their marketing consultant services, it is not.

You might appreciate how they relate a core group group of archetypes and how they relate to contemporary consumers. Such as Outlaw, Hero, etc. I found myself comparing these with what is generally called "demographics" and looking for possible fits, depending on the product or services sold.

What I very much appreciate is their mention of those who "manage meaning" have a responsibility to act ethically and think through their advertising and marketing campaigns. Having worked in consumer products and now in advertising, I know this is often not the case.

You'll get a lot out of this read.

If you're in the business of building brands. positioning products and adding value to organizations, this is a must-read. Simply organized, easy to follow and full of insight and thought, this book belongs on the office desk of every one who's involved in the science and art of marketing and brand development.