Andreea Burlacu (Friends\TBWA): PR, Jung and the brand matrix 

In a new era in which we are talking about continuous innovation, I like to play with old tools, dressed in new clothes. We are determined and decided to reinvent the wheel twice a day, but I like to think that we cannot do that without knowing very well from where we started and who the people are.

Let’s not forget the most important aspect of our discussion:  communication is all about people. And until you don’t give yourself the time and patience to recognize them, understand them, position and feel them, you will keep building in vain. You will manage sometimes to have good campaigns, other times you will sell enough, but you will never have a strong, supported and coherent brand, a love brand.

No matter we’re talking about personal or corporate branding, we keep spinning around people, so philosophy and psychology are extremely welcome to explain habits, realities, personalities and reactions.

So if we’re listening to Father Jung, who no later than 1900 was offering us the wisest markers to interpret and understand people’s needs and characteristics working with 12 archetypes, we can target for real, and not based on instinct, approximations or opinions. I know, it seems off to divide the 7BN people in just 12 typologies, we are unique and we don’t admit labels unless when we feel the need to belong to a group; but, whether we want or not to admit the reality, in the DNA of each of us and in our social groups we belong to are written some needs and ways of acting.

Each of us has a cumulus of archetypes building his or her personality, but one of them tends to be the dominant one. Starting from this premise, the smartest marketing people transposed the 12 archetypes in the brand communication area, adding to them the specific human emotion and reaction power. Those things were happening sometimes in the 80s, nothing is new, but few of us still know or research a real brand analysis or over a positioning based on realities, not dreams.

Those that work with me know that such an analysis, even coming later than the moment the brand was born, is extremely useful mainly to clarify who you are, where are you going, why and what’s the best path to achieve your mission.

Archetypes unite the human sub-consciousness  beyond continents, cultures, sectors, markets and industries. Analysing very well your brand (again, no matter it is a personal or a corporate one), you will manage to find your dominant archetype and, this way, your values, mission and the strong points. Not the last, using specialists who understand communication also from this perspective, you will be able to notice how the communication strategy coagulates much easier, the sending of the message and its enunciation becomes natural, and the brand gets consistency with less effort. Because we get there where we all want: to efficiency.

The matrix of your brand will be set easily, combining the vibration of what it is and what it aims to be, with the sales target, with its mission in the world, all fitting perfectly to a real and well selected target public.

The brand must be treated with as much care, consideration and responsibility as a child, so that, at its maturity, we can count on an evolution and not a crash, on a beautiful self-sustaining element. And, to do so, it would be advisable to analyse for real needs, weak and strong points, the public, to read the matrix and act accordingly.

And, like a caregiver that I am, as this is my archetype, I let you meditate to those with my leading motto:  “Make people a priority.”

About Andreea

Andreea Burlacu is a new media promoter for 6 years already, since 2009. She believes in traditional values of communication and in the need to understand the domains connected to PR in order to create valuable brand strategies.

When working on communication strategies, Andreea use to build them starting from Jung’s archetypes, Maslow’s needs and Scott’s theory of rational choice.

Andreea is PR Manager at Romanian agency Friends\TBWA, Andreea blogs in her spare time and constantly uses Instagram, Pinterest, Vine and the already classical Twitter and Facebook networks.