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The
Archetypical Brand
A
Guest Column from Rick Stone, EVP of Brand Development at our Strategic
Partner, Lindsay,
Stone & Briggs
Some of the biggest problems in creating an effective destinational
brand are how to resolve conflicts among internal stakeholders...and
then, how to keep these various interests aligned behind the very brand
that will be their livelihood.
Those interests typically pit tourism versus economic development, but
they might be individual vested interests within the place to be branded.
They might even be competing interests among similar constituents, such
as two attractions, both wanting the brand to tilt in their favor. In
such a situation, how you position the brand must be true for the entire
place you are trying to brand.
Most political organizations try to resolve the problem of multiple
messages and competing interests by including all the interest groups
in the design and creation of the brand. Usually, that means creating
a big enough committee so that everyone has a say.
But, we all know that a committee’s natural instinct in conflict
resolution is to give something to everyone. The result is often mud.
The answer is that destinations must approach branding much the same
as corporations do. The decision making must be confined to a small
group of leaders who understand branding. Corporations don’t let
everyone have a say...and neither should destinations.
The initial stage of destination branding begins as a small steering
committee is appointed to define the target audiences to be reached.
As the research phase is launched, it’s not just the target audience
that is queried, but also the interests of a broad range of local interest
groups, including business, education, health care, the arts, utilities,
tourism and local government.
It’s important to keep this large cross-section of the community
informed of the branding process... but not become intimately involved
in developing the brand essence or promise.
Conflicts among interests groups can also be mitigated by moving the
focus of the process from the physical attributes or the functional
benefits of the place to higher level emotional or social benefits.
These can act as a larger umbrella under which the various interests
can coexist. Can a city own “fun” the way Nike
owns “performance?” Can a destination own “romance”
the way Victoria’s
Secret owns “sensuality?”
The goal must be to find the highest level benefit the destination can
own in the mind of its various audiences that is both relevant and differentiating.
Many branders recognize a four-level hierarchy of attributes and messages:
• Physical Attributes: Cost, location, attractions,
heritage, etc.
• Functional Benefits: What the brand does for
me
• Emotional Benefits: How the brand makes me feel?
• Self-Expression Benefits: What inner drive
can I express here?
Locations that have done the best job in creating an umbrella brand
have based their appeal on an emotional benefit that can halo the entire
place. New
Zealand’s “100% Real” or Reykjavik’s
“Pure Energy” brands refer to more than just
a litany of attractions because they tap into broad emotional motivations.
Once the initial groundwork has been laid, we rely on projective modeling
techniques to draw out emo-tional benefits. This tactic helps us understand
motivations and attitudes that participants probably would not have
been able to articulate if they had been asked directly for a rational
response. That input is then analyzed and converted into hypothetical
brand promises for later exploration with the target audience.
Many brand models proceed directly from consumer insight to a brand
essence statement and brand promise. However, by adding another step
that includes the subconscious attractors of the brand, we can utilize
archetypes to describe how the brand fulfills the target’s needs.
Archetypical characters have been around since the beginning of storytelling.
All cultures have stories about the hero who overcomes difficulty, the
jester who provides spontaneity and the magician that can transform
people or objects.
These characters keep reappearing because they represent deep, universal
needs and desires that we all have. Carl Jung called this collection
of shared emotions the “collective unconscious.”
When applied
to a brand, archetypes help us understand how the brand fulfills emotional
needs in a way that may be difficult to articulate any other way. They
also provide guidance to those that must develop communication of the
brand. After all, it is easier for a copywriter to ask, “What
would Luke
Skywalker do in this situation” than try to apply
a list of descriptive words that might include “brave, naive,
innocent, selfless, etc.”.
The brand’s archetype represents a projection of the customer’s
desired emotional state. Club
Med is a lover. Disney
World is an innocent. The
Burning Man Festival is a rebel.
The clearer the brand story (and its archetypes), the more easily it
can be communicated to multiple stakeholders and the more accurately
it can be conveyed through advertising, public relations, brochures
and web marketing.
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