Uncovering Your Brand Voice Archetype
In order for you to tell your story with passion, and for your audience to care, your brand voice has to begin in your heart and evolve from there.
What’s different about this elemental, organic test of your brand’s character is that we ask you to choose answers to simple questions, then we match you to an archetype, and then we help you connect the dots to its strengths, weaknesses and a library of other resources.
We turned a simple brand voice quiz inside out to help you to speak your heart, find your voice and tell your story. To do that, we used archetypes; the patterns in history and legend that have been the backbone of stories for thousands of years. There’s more, but establishing your brand voice archetype is all you need to do to start.
Here are introductions to our 12 Brand Voice Archetypes:
🌄
01. The Innocent
Introduction
The Innocent Archetype is foundational, like elements and minerals — stardust even. Its happy place — in the sense of unearthing and speaking a genuine brand voice story — is to wrap itself in harmony. An Innocent brand might never use those exact words but they underscore the gravity of its nature. This brand voice quiz generates an individual archetype report to help you tell your story.
If this sounds like you
An Innocent Archetype Brand is sincere, trustworthy AND trusting. (Make yourself a note to play with those two adjectives.) When you're stuck or challenged (or it's Monday) to tell an inspiring Innocent story, it's "situation normal" to pray for divine inspiration or be tempted to repurpose your sleepy, worn out shtick. There's nothing wrong with asking for help, but you'll always tell better stories with better words (and more coffee).
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
The Hero's Journey has been at the heart and soul of successful stories and global narratives since forever. Its name was coined by author and mythologist Joseph Campbell in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
The Innocent Archetype lives at the very first Departure stage, the beginning of your brand voice adventure.
🌍
02. The Everyperson
Introduction
The Everyperson is sidekick to The Innocent Archetype in the same way that Jack Dawkins (AKA The Artful Dodger, gang leader) is to Oliver Twist, and Huckleberry Finn is to Tom Sawyer.
AND The Everyperson sees beyond the status quo. AND it is called to create community.
If this sounds like you
Insofar as stories go, you are a rallier of troupes. You are fair, and, by extension, versatile enough to perform gallantly in both leader and follower roles. This capacity underpins an authenticity that’s sensitive to the strengths and weaknesses of all twelve archetypes.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, published in 1949 by author and mythologist Joseph Campbell distilled stories from literature, legend, and spiritual narratives into what he labelled the monomyth, a term he borrowed from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce to describe the underlying set of patterns in stories the world over..We find the Innocent Archetype at the second, Departure stage of the Hero's Journey. This is the place on the path when our hero hears what Campbell described as The Call to Adventure.
🛡️
03. The Hero
Introduction
As you might expect, The Hero Archetype (or Warrior as it's sometimes called) is on a mission for justice. The superpower of this archetype is an ability to sense the bigger picture.
If this sounds like you
We know the classic Hero for its bravery and valour but it's easy to overlook the challenges it took to get here. If you can appreciate those struggles you have a key to telling honest and engaging stories. Therein lies the stuff of legend: your humility and vulnerability; your doubt and introspection; and your drive to inspire others to listen, play, share and trust.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
This archetype stands at the Departure stage of The Hero’s Journey: those patterns that evolved from author Joseph Campbell's book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. "Hero" is also the mark that he assigned the protagonist (main character) in every journey of discovery.
Initially rejected by major London publishers, Richard Adams' Watership Down; his telling of the story to his daughters, and its sequel, a quarter of a century later, are magical heroic myth examples. This classic novel about a fluffle of rabbits has been an award-winning bestseller for more than 40 years.
⚕️
04. The Caregiver
Introduction
The continual challenge — from outlining to narrating a unique Caregiver Brand story — is getting weighed down or smothered by the instinctive responsibility and empathy at this archetype's core.
Those are natural and necessary tendencies of course, so the magic for your brand crafting lies in moderation, and resisting the pull toward martyrdom.
If this sounds like you
Two things happen when you cultivate the kind of seasoned authority that is essential to presenting a mature Caregiver Brand:
- You will become more comfortable asking for help.
- You will become more humble.
- Not necessarily in that order.
The path to becoming the proverbial Zen master of compassion is rife with mentors: pebbled, like the white stones and breadcrumbs laid by Hansel and Gretel to mark their way home. Those guides may appear as wise counsellors, the readers and listeners in your audience, or benevolent champions of your cause.
Rest assured, they will appear — theirs is an important place in your story. However, don't forget that birds ate the breadcrumbs in the fairy tale, and mentors are annoyingly rife with more questions than answers.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
On our Hero's Journey perspective, The Caregiver Archetype lives at the crossing of the threshold on its adventure.
🏔️
05. The Explorer
Introduction
It wasn’t until the 1600s that the verb explore came to mean, “to go to a country or place on a quest of discovery.” Prior to that, word has it that it meant crying out loud or creating a flow.
Fear not. Your Explorer Archetype's story journey is not a study in etymology, BUT, two defining weaknesses of this archetype's storytelling are its rigidity and insistence on perfection, so, for crying out loud, start creating your flow.
If this sounds like you
"Not all who wander are lost" is a line in the Tolkien poem, The Song of Aragorn, in which he weaves gold and ashes with roots and frost to describe the hitherto hidden explorer king of Gondor. This is your kind of flow.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
The Explorer archetype is emblematic of “Crossing the Threshold” on the Hero’s Journey. For a brand voice this threshold illustrates the distinctions between defiance and autonomy; reaction and action; making them exceedingly more apparent and useful. In other words, this is where the reluctant hero's rubber meets the road.
Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, Herbert’s Dune, Asimov’s Foundations and Hesse’s Siddhartha are all universes rife with both confident and untested explorer voices.
🏴☠️
06. The Outlaw
Introduction
Brands that manifest the qualities of an authentic Outlaw Archetype — Robin Hood and Ali Baba, for character examples — are just as bound by duty, truth and righteousness as the Ruler and Innocent Archetypes.
If this sounds like you
Whether your Outlaw Archetype brand is sailing the seven seas saving sooty albatrosses or hurrying to help the hermit-like zigzag heron: rebelliousness is good. Hitting the brakes when your writing is beginning to sound reckless, militant and disillusioned is very good. The outlaw label comes from a place that is "outside the law" but you know that can be honest and kind and selfless. In uncovering and telling your story, the end does not justify any means, or, in the words of Charlie Brown, "When life knocks you down, roll over and look at the stars".
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
At this “adventure” stage on our hero’s journey (Joseph Campbell’s monomyth, the patterns that have influenced the world’s greatest stories since the beginning of storytelling) our character faces tests, forges alliances, and foils enemies.
Not of this planet: Ford Prefect, the alien journalist from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, is rough and roughly equal parts Outlaw and Jester archetype.
🔥
07. The Lover
Introduction
You can paint and paper a Lover Archetype brand story with a rainbow vocabulary and these three tips:
- Find ways to embrace words of becoming.
- Picture a process that travels through surrender to passion, devotion to bliss, and finally, fellowship.
- Draw from a palette of colours, textures, tones and patterns — but not with crayons or Sharpies — or your partner will have a markedly more colourful rainbow vocabulary for you.
If this sounds like you
Marrying the (1) heart and (2) soul of this archetype to its brand voice can be as simple as connecting the dots between the two of them. (We can help you with this in the Pro Brand Voice reports.) The good news is that they’ll be matches made in heaven. The bad news is that breaking up is still hard to do.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
The Lover Archetype is shacked up at the seventh stage of the Hero’s Journey: The Approach to the Inner Cave (where the proverbial caricature of a wise Zen master sits waiting — or not waiting — as they do). It’s a becoming and maturing phase. This Lover embodies the innocence and naivety of Winnie-the-Pooh but it does so with the worldly concern of Christopher Robin.
🎭
08. The Creator
Introduction
This archetype's brand story arc isn't always populated by fingerpaint and popsicle stick characters.
Yes, a Creator Brand is often artistic, imaginative and fanciful, but it can just as easily be the fearless, risk-comfortable Brand Aid type that lives in a constant state of make-anything possibility.
Either way it typically loathes inactivity, sometimes to the point of workaholism. And it's prone to both the overwhelm of impostor syndrome; or conversely, self-importance.
The Creator's deepest fear is not that it is inadequate; it fears that it is inauthentic.
If this sounds like you
Weeooo! Now that we have both the good news and bad news out of the way, brands that successfully channel their Creator Archetype potential and navigate its polarities, are keenly aware of the need to balance production with introspection and equanimity.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
The Creator Archetype is representative of a turning point in a brand adventure story. You have arrived at the final stage of your hero's initiation. This is your armour-on, sword drawn ordeal. It is cathartic; it is a threshold; but most importantly, it is the gate to the blue-sky version of your mission, vision and values. Prepare to face your dragon.
🦉
09. The Ruler
Introduction
A Ruler Brand Voice must be calculating. It must diligently temper its ego with chivalry, and its crusade for structure with patience.
In the pre-Internet days of Rulerdom we were stymied by ruled pages and graph paper, and before that, the lazy, hazy, crazy days of parchment and abacus. Be thankful that nowadays you can spreadsheet more charity, eloquence and majesty into your Brand Voice and filter out formality, arrogance and pride.
If this sounds like you
The Ruler is the ninth of the twelve stages in The Hero's Journey — the beginning of your journey home.
Your leadership and integrity have been seasoned by your triumph over the ordeal, but before you begin your return with a chest of gold doubloons, the secret sauce, or holy grail — remain reserved. You have space to reflect on integrating your transformed intentions. Think like Willy Wonka.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
Joseph Campbell dedicated a significant part of his life to studying the influence of mythology on stories. He distilled the patterns he found into what he called the monomyth, which became commonly referred to as the Hero’s Journey. Author and screenwriter Phil Cousineau referred to Campbell's work as "the Story behind the story".
🔮
10. The Magician
Introduction
The distinction between a stereotypical stage magician and the Magician Brand Archetype is that the former is synonymous with performance, and the latter is the essence of service.
We know that mystique and control are the fundamental forces of that stereotypical magician, but your Magician Brand reassures us with confidence, experience and maturity.
If this sounds like you
Your "one job" as a storyteller is to refine and leverage magic words so that they convey your fundamental truth and understanding; the ingredients of all good stories.
If you can hold the distinction between those two magicians you achieve three things:
- You disarm a tendency for deception in the face of uncertainty.
- You dispel illusion.
- You discourage imitation.
You must be truthful, but you have the charm to be obscure.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
On a Campbellian Hero’s Journey, The Magician Archetype finds itself on The Road Back, the second of the four Return stages. Our pilgrim, or padawan princess has faced her demons, sought counsel, recovered her grail and is on her way home: transformed.
We witness this archetypal magic in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Dorothy learns to trust and inspire. She finds herself as she learns to lead others.
📜
11. The Sage
Introduction
Albert Einstein (the e=mc2 guy with the crazy hair) made the distinction: “Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.”
Hold that thought, because your ongoing task as Brand Voice Architect for the Sage Archetype, is to determine whether the word problem describes the challenge you’re facing. Then, you must gauge the degree of intellect or genius required to understand or communicate its substance. Think slowly and be spartan with your resources.
If this sounds like you
We, your audience, can sense that you have answers in the wise tone of your voice and the calm of your presence. But we don’t want you to climb the mountain for us, we only need you to sketch the path of possibility, risk, prudence and reward.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
The Sage is the eleventh, penultimate (Ed: I love that word) archetype in our twelve-stage Hero’s Journey.
Unless you’re a card player, penultimate might be a new word for you. It comes from the Latin, paene (“almost”) + ultimus (“last”).
This is a place of balance and influence in your voice. It is not the Wizard in Oz, nor is it the Alice in Wonderland. It is Merlin, Odin, Aslan from Narnia, and Treebeard of Entwood.
🎡
12. The Jester
Introduction
You made adjective choices during your brand voice quiz that established The Jester Archetype’s affinity for you. Some of them might have been carefree and casual, but here's what matters:
☝ Those aspects of this archetype’s brand voice are a reflection of the lightness that comes with wisdom rather than the silliness of its absence.
Think of the delight and selflessness of the Dalai Lama, Robin Williams and Stephen Hawking, for example.
If this sounds like you
Use patience and caution in your brand storytelling. Resist the temptation to take high-handed or overly witty liberties in your Jester brand voice. Your audience is listening for the depth and breadth of your wisdom.
Your Archetype on its Hero's Journey
This is the twelfth and final stage of Campbell's Hero’s Journey: from this formula's perspective, our story's hero or heroine has returned home, but:
“Be sure there’s nothing perishes in the whole universe; it does but vary and renew its form.”
— Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces
In their work, The Hero and the Outlaw, Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes, Margaret Mark and Carol S. Pearson’s use of Forrest Gump is an excellent example of the Jester.