Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you by Esther of IPA Group, bringing premier online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of STOMP social media training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. And welcome back to another episode of the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Today we're joined by Carol Gaffney, brand strategist at Gaffney Studios. And we're talking about brand archetypes. Welcome, Carol.
Carol
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with both of you. And yes, I can't wait to answer everything about brand archetypes and how we use that to design our brand photo shoots. And it's a topic that I really love, so I can't wait to talk about that.
Esther
Brilliant. So the one question that most people will ask, and we know we are going to ask it here anyway, what is a brand archetype?
Carol
Yeah, brand archetype. Well, the archetype theory was designed by Carl Jung, I don't know if you're familiar with Carl Jung. And he divided our personalities in several archetypes. And then I think in 2004 there was an author called Carol Pearson. She brought that theory into brains, into marketing. So then she said twelve archetypes is enough for brain archetypes. You don't need more than twelve. So it's the magician, the caregiver, the lover, the explorer, the ruler. We also call the royal rebel. Anyways, twelve in total. And they are most easy way to describe them that it's like the universal symbolic that really resonates across cultures. So they are very deep into the subconscious mind of our collective unconscious. So when you think about, for example, when you think about a caregiver, you think about a mother, right? You think about someone in the kitchen most of the time, taking care of other people, using their hands all the time. When we think about those symbols to represent a caregiver, it's a universe. So it's not just one symbol, it's like lots of different codes, visual codes, and can be words, can be sound, can be music, that symbolise that personality. To be very clear about what archetype is, there are symbols, elements and signs that are part of our collective unconscious and that represent a specific personality.
Melanie
So obviously you're a very visual person, Carol, what you do is extremely visual. For people who are like services which would be normally deemed less visual, would they still have a brand archetype that they create?
Carol
Yes, definitely. Because, for example, if you are a career coach, right, it's a service that you provide and then you have the sage archetype the sage archetype is all about studying. It's all about being very deep into their, how can I say? Their studies, their research. And it's very intellectual personality. So we can bring that type of personality into the way they represent themselves. So this sage archetype that is a career coach, for example, they can bring those words that represent the sage archetype, they can bring in their symbols, the way they present themselves. They can put pictures of books, libraries. The colour as well plays a huge part, like colour that represents, most of the time, the colours that you can see in a library or can be a deep green or can be terracotta. So, yeah, the way they show off, the way they dress. Okay, what she delivers is a service, but she will post her photos, she will have a website that people can see, can have those signals, they can be bombarded with those signals into their subconscious mind. And if they are looking for career coach, they are very sage, they are very intellectual, they are very intelligent. They will hire her. If they are looking for career coach, they are more of a caregiver type. They are not going to hire her, they're going to hire someone else. And that saves that career coach time because they are not going to be dealing with clients. They are looking for something else.
Esther
So how do you represent all of this, or even a stage before that? How do you figure out what archetype you are? Is there a questionnaire? Is there checkbox activity? Is it a personal thing where I would turn up and say, yeah, no, I'm this one. And Melanie might turn around and go, no, you're not. What way do you figure out what archetype people are?
Carol
So we always say that we don't choose an archetype. We figure out, exactly as I said, we figure out, we identify the archetype because it's all part of our personality. So in our case, when the client books us to design a brand photo shoot, we have a questionnaire. It's like 20 questions, where they go very deep into their sense, their personality. We always tell them to really answer as their self, their own essence, not who they want to be, not someone that people expect them to be or their niche or their sector or the industry expect them to be, no. Who they really are. Because any archetype can sell in any niche, in any industry. And then we do that questionnaire. I use the same questionnaire when I mentor personal brands as well. So it's very precise. It's very rare that someone gives because sometimes when I meet a person, I start analysing them. So I'm like, this person is the sage archetype or this person is the caregiver type. And 99% of the time when the results of the questionnaire comes back, I'm like, yes, I was right. So in very rare occasions when the answers are all over the place, I ask the client, how did you answer the questionnaire? Were you focused? No, I was not focused. My neighbour rang the bell. She was asking me this, this and that.
Melanie
Sat on the toilet, that sort of thing.
Carol
Yeah, happens. So then when the answer is all over the place, I know they shouldn't focus. And I always ask them to focus, to pull like a music that they love, get their favourite drink and really lock themselves in a room, tell everybody that they really focus because they really need to go very deep into their sense to understand who they are. Because I always like to give that example. I'm not a gesture archetype. I'm not funny. So imagine if I have a brand that I put the gesture archetype as the main archetype for that brand. That brand is not going to last for a month or even a week, because I'm not funny. So I cannot pretend I'm funny if I'm not. So it's very important to respect your own personality and to identify your personality.
Melanie
So I've got to ask.
Esther
Knew she was going to ask.
Melanie
You met us a while back at an event. This is how today is possible. And of course, we had a little bit of time to talk before today. Now, you know that myself and Esther, we have our own separate brands and we've brought together our collective knowledge and had a go at doing a podcast, basically, and we now have this new brand. So how would your brand archetypes bring together the true essence of who myself and Esther are and reflect that in a brand new brand? Would we then be two separate archetypes or would we be collectively one? How does that work?
Carol
Most of the time, when you go into a partnership, when you go into a marriage or whatever, it's very likely that you have set of values that are similar, they overlap. Each archetype has their set of values. So, for example, the set of values that we share, it's more related to the explorer archetype, myself and Phil. So he has explorer archetype as a secondary, and I have the explorer archetype as well as a secondary archetype. So whenever we work with brands that has more than one owner, I never worked with a brand that has more than one owner. The main archetypes don't overlap. Normally the main archetypes, they do overlap and then we work with that one that overlaps. We work as the main archetype and then we understand what is the motivation of the brand to pick the secondary archetype of one of the two, to bring the secondary archetype. It's very rare for us to get an archetype that doesn't belong to the triage of the main tree archetypes of each owner to bring the motivation, because most of the time, like for example, we worked with a travel agency and the two ladies that own the travel agency, they both have the explorer archetype really on the top. So we worked with the explorer archetype and one of them, she had the love archetype. So because they sell luxurious travel and we did bring the love archetype as a secondary, as a motivation to bring that touch of luxury into the brand. So in answering your question, we would understand which are your main archetypes for each of you, most likely it's overlap. We take that main archetype as the main one and we understand the motivation behind the brand to bring the secondary archetype to attract the right clients, because that's what brand archetype does. They really help you to attract the right clients. They are looking for what you offer, the way you offer.
Esther
So you said there that everybody has three archetypes, is that correct? So there's like a main one, a secondary one and a tertiary one, or would they ever sort of have two or three that are competing for top slot?
Carol
We all have the twelve archetypes within us and we score them like, for example, the siton archetype. When I do my score for this archetype, the siton archetype goes very low, the dress archetype goes very low. The rebel, maybe in the middle, I'm kind of a rebel. But when it comes to lover, to explorer and the magician goes really high, it scores really high. So those are the three archetypes. At the moment, they're a part of my own personality. I don't think it's going to change. What can happen is, for example, archetypes. They are similar, for example, the ruler archetype and the love archetype. Some people, once they come into a stage in their lives, the ruler can overcome the love archetype. But most of the time we have those three archetypes. They are very part of our nature, it's very part of our sense, because it's part of your sense, we can change our behaviour. We can change our knowledge. We can change a lot of different things in our lives as we grow, as we develop. But our sense is very rare for us to change. I'll give an example, like, when I do the archetype test, and I do that very often because part of what I offer. So I have to do my inner work all the time. And I always remember the first time I went to Disney World, I was absolutely amazed. I was like, that's my place. And because I remember travelling back home, I was crying. I was like, oh, my God, I don't want that dream. I don't want to wake up from that dream. So the magician archetype is really strong in my triage, and I know that when I look back, I can see that from my childhood.
Melanie
Okay, well, before I go on to what you were covering just there, I wanted to ask. We've been doing podcasts over the last few months with people who are more introverted. And obviously, I do understand that you want to reflect the brand, but you want to attract the right type of people as well. So even when you're building an understanding of who the archetype is, of the person that you're trying to support, creating the brand strategy for the brand archetype. Sorry, how do you create a brand archetype that will attract the audience that they're looking for? Are you trying to sort of coerce them into being something they're not? Or how do you do that?
Carol
Yeah, it's not sustainable to be someone who you are not. It's not sustainable. So that's the reason why we use archetype to attract the ideal clients. They are looking for what you offer with your personality.
Melanie
So even introverted? Even introverted.
Carol
Even introverted. Someone that is very introverted. We have some clients that are very introverted. And, for example, they don't like recording videos. So they say, okay, I want to have a bank of photos that I can just keep posting and keep putting myself out there without having to record a video, without having to show up in a video, or I don't like my voice, and so on. So we can do that, no problem. And when comes to archetype, the archetype is going to help you in a way that, for example, if the person is a citizen archetype, a citizen archetype is all about sustainability. It's all about being responsible in relation to the community, in relation to understanding that we all are equal and we all have the same rights. So if someone, a customer is looking for, let's say, a marketing specialist. And that aligns with their value because at the end of the day, we buy by identification or by aspiration. We either buy because we feel aligned to that personality, we think we understand we are similar or I want to be like that person. Right. So anyone can be an introvert or an extrovert. It doesn't matter if they have the right archetype. They're going to attract the ideal client, the dream clients. I call dream clients because those are the clients that don't give you a headache because they know what they are buying. Right. They know what they are going into. If you are, for example, as part of a magician archetype, I have a straight talk as one of my core values. And when the client buys from me, I always try to talk about that in social media. And when I meet people, what is the straight talk is being honest but putting empathy first. So people, when they buy from me, they're not going to be, oh my God, they're not going to be scared and they're not going to be surprised. They're not going to look for a caregiver. I'm not a caregiver. I'm not a caregiver at all. I can help you, okay? But I'm not going to be carrying you and putting, it's not my style. So when I am a mentor, for example, when I advertise myself as a brand mentor, I look for mentees that understand that I'm not going to carry them, I'm not going to do things for them. I guide them, but they need to do their work. So that's how brand archetype helps me. Regardless if I'm introvert or not, it's going to help me to attract my ideal clients. So down the line, I'm not going to have a problem with that client because they know what they bought. Interesting.
Esther
Yeah. And there's somebody for everybody. So there's always somebody looking for what you sell or what you offer, like you say, whether that because they align with what you're offering or because they're aspiring, it's not like you're going to all of a sudden, after going through these archetypes and discovering who or which one you are, which one is most relatable to you. It's not as if you're going to then attract zero customers. It's more likely that you will attract even more customers. Right.
Carol
You're going to attract your tribe. You're going to attract your tribe and that's what we all want.
Melanie
Okay. You thought I was going to ask earlier on, but I'm going to ask now. So what do you think our brand archetype is as the Monday Morning Marketing podcast, Carol?
Carol
Which is your brand archetype?
Melanie
Yep.
Esther
Don't put her on the spot now, Melanie. That's just mean.
Carol
I don't like answering that question because imagine if you send signals to me that is not part of your brain's archetype. And when you do the test, if you ever work with whoever worked together and you do the test, it's something else. And then if I say that you are one archetype, you will start to behave like that archetype and can be a stereotype and that devalues your brand. If you start behaving as a stereotype, that devalues your brand a lot. So I have my idea. I have my idea of your brand very clear. But I don't like answering that question because that can be wrong. The signals that you are sending to me, I don't know if you are sending because it's part of your brain or it's part of personality. So I'm always careful about answering that without having the questionnaire.
Esther
Good answer.
Melanie
Good answer.
Esther
So you've mentioned this before, and part of Gaffney Studios is brand photography. So when you are taking pictures of people, then, like you said, if they're already an established brand, if they've already got their logo and their colour scheme and everything like that, but their archetype comes back as something completely different, would you encourage them then to go and change all of that? Or how do you go about. I know you said you're a straight talker, but how do you go about broaching that topic? Or would you just say, well, that's fine, because that's your logo and that's been long standing for, and everybody knows that's your logo. How about in the brand photos, we take them with these elements and include your colours, but these other elements so that it's more in line with your archetype. How do you do that for an established brand?
Carol
Yeah, that happened very recently, actually. A brand that is very established came as the ruler and the explorer archetype, which is really part of her personality. And when you look at her brand, the colours were not aligned, the logo was not aligned, was representing maybe an innocent archetype or something, caregiver archetype, but not ruler or explorer. So I didn't even have to tell her. She said, I think it's time for me to think about the other part of my brand like logo, colour scheme and so on. So she's reviewing that as well. But what we do normally after the photo shoot, most of our clients, they get like a 1 hour coaching session. We call the follow up call after the photo shoot. So we help them like, okay, we went through all this together. Normally it takes four to six weeks to design a photo shoot. We go very deep into their brand, we go very deep into their personality. So it's four to six weeks. And then after that they have the bank of photos to represent their personality, to represent their brand archetype. And then we say, why not? If you post this photo and you put, we have a bank of words that we give to them as well, like keywords, for example. So if you have photos that represents the rule archetype and you are using keywords on your text, you post a photo, right, as a post in social media. And then you write the text and the keywords represents the caregiver personality. It's not going to match, it's going to confuse the customers. Confused customers don't buy, so it's not going to represent your own archetype. So it's a 1 hour and a half call that explain to them how to leverage their brand archetype in all the areas of their marketing, not only on the photos, because it's very important for them to understand how to leverage their brand archetype in different areas. And most of the time they realise that they need to update their logo and the brand palette, the colour palette and so on early stage, but sometimes we talk about that on the follow up call.
Melanie
Wow, this sounds like a really large package that you're offering here. And it's great that you don't just kind of do all this work and then just leave them to it. So this follow up call is, I suppose, like a level of accountability as well, which I'm all for personally. So one thing you did mention there, which I found quite interesting, is you don't expect people to just sort of sit on those images and those words. This is something that you can come back to and get up to date photos and maybe update your archetype as well. So how often is it needed? Is it something once a year, once every couple of years? Or does it depend, like a lot of things.
Carol
You mean to review the archetype or to do the photoshoot?
Melanie
Bit of both really.
Carol
Yeah. To review the archetype, I'd say once a year, but it's something that you need to do. If a branch archetype expert. It's not something that you can do on your own because you need someone. Even myself, I'm a branch archetype expert, but I have a brand archetype mentor who mentors me. And we are going through that at the moment. We are reviewing my archetype at the moment because I'm rebranding. So I have that with me. I have that mentor with me to help me to review micro type to understand which one is going to come first. Now for the rebranding, how we are going to do the danks between the three of them. The fourth. Should we bring the fourth as well or just leave the fourth as fourth and leave outside? So it's something that I would review once a year because we change, we learn, we grow as a business, as a person. So it's good to review once a year brand photo shoot. Definitely once a year because we change a lot and it's really important to have a photo shoot once a year, just a version of yourself, a curtain version of yourself. So many people that have their headshots, like from ten years ago, from 15 years ago, and they don't look like that anymore. So it is important. It is important to have my recommendation to have once a year, definitely.
Esther
Okay, so how do people get in touch with you and get onto your radar in terms of connecting with you for brand archetypes and then for the photo shoots, how do they contact you, Carol?
Carol
It's Carol Gaffney on LinkedIn. We have a website, gaffneystudio.com and our instagram is gaffneystudio.com. Yeah, everywhere is Gaffney Studio. And then you can also find as Carol Gaffney on LinkedIn as well.
Esther
Okay. And you're based in Ireland, but can anybody outside of like connect with you and get maybe not the photoshoot unless you're willing to travel, get at least to help with the brand archetype.
Carol
Definitely. I have clients all over the world for the mentorship, but we both are explorers as our secondary archetype. As you can see, I have pictures of a place that I love behind me. So we love travelling. So if someone wants a brand photo shoot in very strategic brand photo shoot, not a one size fits all brand photo shoot, but very strategic, very bespoke brand photo shoot. And they want us to travel. That's our love language. So we love travelling and we are going to be really happy to travel.
Esther
Brilliant.
Melanie
As long as somebody else pays for it. You'll travel anywhere.
Carol
Definitely.
Esther
Well, thank you so much Carol, for coming on and for explaining all about brand archetypes. I feel much clearer about what they are. And now I'm going to have to delve into what one I am. And I'm going to message you privately to get that information out of. Thanks, Carol. And thanks for joining us today, guys. We will be back next week with another Monday Morning Marketing podcast. Until then, bye bye.
Melanie
Bye.
Carol
Bye.
Melanie
See, I told you, Esther.
Esther
What? That I'm the jester? Yes, I know.
Melanie
No. Although that was pretty funny, actually. No, it's about the photo.
Esther
Yeah, yeah, who has time for that?
Melanie
It took four flipping years to get video out of you. How long is it going to take for the photo.
Esther
Maybe another four.
Carol
Yes. So many people, they just don't.
