PART 2: APPLYING ARCHETYPES
Using Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson’s seminal work on archetypes and branding (The Hero & the Outlaw; McGraw Hill; 2001) we will demonstrate how each archetype can deal with the Covid crisis.
It is critical that marketers do not rush to alter their brand’s DNA to solve emerging crises but understand how their brand’s archetype needs to be activated and presented to be true to its DNA.
KEY ISSUE
The world as we knew it, from the point of view of human well-being and stability, has changed dramatically. The virus has posed a threat to us and has enforced a complete shutdown of life, business and social interactions across the world. All institutions, activities and indeed, cosmology – both religious or scientific, that have sustained life and have given it meaning have their credibility challenged, thus, disturbing their ability to restore Nomos or order.
The sense of chaos and anomie is strong, creating anxiety and a potential loss of everyday meaning. We do not know whether businesses, world economies and stock markets will stagger or recover shortly; whether social isolation will become a new normal or if new ways of connecting and building affinity will replace social interactions as we always knew them. Creating a medicalised discourse around the virus that underscores fatality has also led to a loss of control and a loss of wellbeing.
In a nutshell, humanity is in lockdown mode while death roams free.
Let us examine this crisis from the perspective of consumers. What are consumers seeking when their sense of reality and order has been disturbed and there is a resultant loss of meaning? What reassurances are they seeking when neither the sacred nor the scientific canopy is able to re-assure them sufficiently anymore?
Clearly consumers are seeking order, structure, predictability and control.
They are seeking a new meaning system that redefines reality, relationships, ways of living, conducting business. They are seeking a new understanding of the place of the individual in this new reality.
How various archetype sets are likely to speak to create a restoration of meaning
For the Creator, Caregiver and the Ruler the key task would be to re-establish control and stability through a new definition of order.
The Ruler archetype would create new pathways of knowledge and rules that would define a new order: thereby enhancing the consumer experience of stability and nomos. The consumer is reassured that the ruler brand has his/her back and knows how this new reality is to be navigated.
The Caregiver, by contrast would create the stability and control by enhancing personal and familial security based on the new rules of the new order. Here it could be adherence to social distancing or enhanced hygiene rituals or enhanced wellbeing from providing the ideal diet, foods or promoting a protective lifestyle.
The Creator’s role in underscoring stability and control would be to provide innovative solutions for every threat that seems to destroy one’s sense of stability and meaning. Creator brands would empower consumers with new ways of doing things and navigating the new reality.
The shadow side of this set is the risk of rigidity, inflexibility and totalitarianism because the new set of rules may become non-negotiable. Or that the new reality discriminates against sections of society that do not conform to the new order. There could also be the risk of an overly medicalised discourse being imposed to control what is seen as a threat and an unknown aspect of the virus.
The Regular guy, the Jester and the Lover would deal with the crisis of meaning by emphasising the need to not lose one’s sense of fun, pleasure and community as we navigate a new order. The Covid threat creates fear and helplessness that forces the consumer to look at everything with jaundiced eyes. The fear of fatality, the medicalisation of the discourse, the inability of science to provide solutions all create a rigid set of rules and rituals that weaken the sense of “communitas”. As a result, the sense of order and meaning is fractured as humans are forced to isolate, keep their distance and to abjure all normal social rituals that are the fabric of daily life.
The Lover archetype, for instance, would focus on the importance of enjoying the present situation created by the crisis through new rituals and experiences with one’s loved ones. Despite a new normal, the fabric of meaning that stems from community and relationships is not ripped apart but kept together.
The Regular guy creates meaning by being the solid citizen who helps the community to rebuild in the new reality. He does this by espousing practical and sensible values that cement communities together. He underscores the fact that Covid is the great leveler and that we are all in it together and hence the solutions should be available to all at the macro and micro level.
The Jester recreates meaning by being the devil’s advocate, the mirror that reflects the fault lines and the abuse of power that is likely in the construction of a new reality. He also lightens up the despair being felt by the flux and change. He forces the rule makers to take cognisance of their rigidity and inflexibility.
The shadow side of these archetypes would be the fear of becoming too obsessive, overly rational, hyper-critical and dismissive of the reality as it presents itself.
For the Hero, the Outlaw and the Magician the recreation of meaning comes from seizing each risk and challenge to become an opportunity and a potential for transformation and real change. The virus is not viewed as a calamity but as a catalyst of change. All these archetypes work at the level of provoking the individual to consider a transformation and also provoke others to be part of the change. They would probably see these times of crisis to be alchemic and magical and the power of the problem becomes the impetus for real change and real meaning. This set of archetypes does not have a nostalgic link with what has passed but are seeking a better tomorrow.
From the Hero’s perspective Covid becomes the challenge and a cause for creating a better and more sustainable world. A world of higher purpose. The Hero would urge consumers to fight the battle with courage and confidence. He would project and will togetherness as a family, community and country to win this war and evolve to a better place.
The Outlaw would use the challenge to urge us to break old rules so that new ones are more egalitarian and inclusive and create the necessary societal transformation. This is the beginning of the change. The virus is not the enemy, it is the catalyst of change.
The need is to fight and stand up for the right cause now; if we don’t fight back now, we perhaps never will provoke ourselves or provoke others around us to move towards a new reality.
The Magician, by contrast, will seek to encourage consumers to use the reality of the crisis as a moment of change, as an alchemic moment that transforms both our inner and outer lives for the better. The watershed moment to introspect about better ways of living, consuming, interacting with families and loved ones, ways of working, and ways of being.
The shadow side of this set would be the fear of becoming too arrogant, a vigilante and manipulative.
The Innocent, the Explorer and the Sage, each archetype in this set envisions a new reality and the establishment of new meaning as the perfect world from their own perspective.
For the Innocent the post-Covid reality will be one that needs to be close to Utopia: a better world, one that does not have the problems and dysfunctionalities of the pre-Covid world. A more sustainable and egalitarian world.
For the Sage the call will be to re-assure the consumer to stand above their fears and emotions and view their current sufferings
as a gateway to a new resolve that will give rise to a more balanced future. The Sage will position the new reality as an opportunity to create a balance between new knowledge systems and new ways of living and consuming.
The Explorer is likely to talk about new horizons and new experiences that will promise freedom and liberation from a world that appears corrupted and debased due to Covid and other threats. The creation of a new normal would be based on a new imagination which could be a more AI generated world that is networked differently and creates meaning using new paradigms of reality, relationships and living. It could also be an inner exploration that raises critical questions about how the future can be shaped.
The shadow side of this set would be naiveté, aimlessness and becoming too opinionated and self-absorbed.
This is part 2 of a 3 part article – look out for part 3
