Series E
Archetypes
Trickster
Unpredictability. Chaos. And a whole lot of joy. Ready for a wild ride through the compelling world of trickster branding? We're spilling the beans on one of the most powerful archetypes that brands use to create enthralling narratives. We'll enlighten you on how brands like Cadbury, Old Spice, M&M's, Ikea, and Mini, leverage the trickster's characteristics — impulsive, irreverent, charming, boundary-pushing and humorous to weave storytelling magic.
Transcript
Bob Sheard: So the Trickster is the archetype or the brand meaning system you would choose if you want the effect of your brand to be unbridled joy. Joy found in the place of chaos, joy found in the ritual of upheaval and joy found in the time of disorder. So it's a really restless archetype. Its rational values are restlessness, opportunistic and irreverence, augmented by emotional values of humorous, audacious and mischievous. What this role stands for is unpredictability. What this role stands against is predictability. So it's a really volatile, exciting, chaotic role and really interesting when you consider that the direction of time is demonstrably from order to chaos. So we know that the direction of time goes, if you put an apple on your desk, it doesn't get better, it just gets worse. It becomes more chaotic and mouldy. And it's the same with houses, they just need, ultimately they don't get more modernized, they become objects of restoration. So we age, our body turns to chaos as we get older. So we know the direction of time is from order to chaos and this is an archetypal brand role that really celebrates that. So in culture, in Pirates to the Caribbean, it's Jack Sparrow. In Beverly Hills Cop, it's Axel Foley, it's Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, it's Fred and George Weasley in Harry Potter and in many ways it's Villanelle in Killing Eve. The Trickster archetype really pushes the boundaries. They have a lightness of foot but they revel in chaos. They're a catalyzer of chaos but they bring with it a great charm and they're impulsive. So those narratives of the boundaries, lightness, chaos being a catalyst, being charming and impulsive, they're in Cadbury's, in campaigns of cadbries, they're there in Old Spice, they're there in M and M's, they're a bit there in Ikea and they're there in the Mini advertising. So you can see how this joy and chaos is a really powerful way of telling some very powerful narratives as we move through time.
Michael Campion: Yeah, I think for me, when you were listening off all those attributes, I was just thinking of a couple of comedians. I really like, like Sarah Silverman, I think in the US it really embodies that chaos and cheekiness and irreverence. Russell Brand, I think, would be another, the escapism and the joy, the wicked humour, the ability to laugh in the face of chaos, right.
Bob Sheard: Yeah, and to do the unexpected. I mean, often in these situations there is genius at foot and the genius doesn't even know where it's going. So you know, when they don't know where they're going, when they go tangentially off the script or when they do something that's unexpected, we follow in awe and wonder. It's a very powerful brand role to choose, but you have to be able to back that up with, you know you can't create this role and have boring product.