The use of archetypes in advertising : how brands can remain relevant in a rapidly changing advertising industry through the concept of archetypes

Archetypes, as defined by Carl Jung, are "a universal and recurring image, pattern, or motif representing a typical human experience." Thus they are thoughtful representations of human characteristics that essentially describe universal human motivations. In advertising, archetypes have been used to help define brands and present them to consumers in a meaningful way. This report proposes to validate the usage of archetypes as a tool to bolster the storytelling aspect of brands to the consumer. The suggestion here is that brands that are challenged in reaching today’s complex global consumer can evoke the desired brand meaning by incorporating values of the appropriate archetypes. The author also believes that understanding an individual’s archetypes can help uncover insights that relate to aspects of their values and attitudes for brands and, in that way, those archetypes can be a reasonable predictor of affective reactions to symbolic advertisement communication.