The Creator Brand Archetype is the most imaginative and innovative archetype of the 12 Jungian Archetypes.
If you want your brand to connect through personality, you can leverage the creator archetype characteristics by inspiring or encouraging originality.
Some market sectors gravitate towards brands with a grand vision or brands that push boundaries.
If you’re wondering if the Creator Archetype will help you to connect with your audience, this article will tell you what you need to know.
Brand Archetypes Cheatsheet
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Who Is The Creator Brand Archetype?
The Creator personality comes alive when they’re creating something that wasn’t there before whether that’s purely for fun or to achieve a greater purpose.
They believe they can contribute to their world to leave it better than how they found it by changing what’s normal or expected.
They have a burning desire for creative expression and their mantra is:
Everything begins with an idea
The creator is often a perfectionist who resists sending their work into the world until it meets their level of approval.
Real creators seek originality and though they’re the first to take inspiration from the work of others, they despise copycat’s who plagerise.
The Creator Personality Key Characteristics
The Creator is driven by the core desire for:
INNOVATION
The Creator is constantly searching for or displaying:
Originality
Imagination
Expression
Vision
While they’re contently running from and fear:
Stagnation
Indifference
Mediocrity
Duplication
The Creator Archetype Brand Strategy
If your brand is following a grand vision of originality or plays a role in the creative expression of your audience then the Creator Archetype may be a solid foundation for your brand personality.
Your audience is likely trying to bring something to life that wasn’t previously there before whether that’s a business, a building or a visual creation.
The strategic association made with The Creator Characteristics is “Innovation” and “Uniqueness”.
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When To Use The Creator Archetype
If your audience wants to realise a vision or simply express themselves creatively they may look for their brands to inspire, encourage, support or facilitate that creation.
If your brand provides tools of expression, shares a similar vision, or is in the businesses or inspiring imagination, the creator characteristics can help you form a formidable bond with your audience.
When To Avoid The Creator Archetype
The characteristics of the creator may work against your brand if you’re seeking to communicate history, tradition, stability or safety.
Innovation implies risk and originality suggests a break from convention or staying true to ones roots.
Typical Creator Industries
All businesses are born from an idea and so by nature are forms of innovation.
That said, not all entrepreneurs are creative by nature which are the personalities the creator appeals to most.
Any brands in the business of creative thinking, innovation or inspiration might leverage the creator archetype and typical industries include:
Design
Architecture
Information Technology
Marketing
Writing
Performance Arts
Is My Brand A Creator Brand?
If you’re considering using the creator brand archetype personality to resonate with your audience, then the following questions will guide your decision.
Do we inspire, encourage, support or facilitate originality?
Is our solution associated with the pursuit of a vision?
Is our brand used at any stage during or on the journey to innovation?
Will our audience embrace creative inspiration?
Do the creator characteristics align with the position we want to own in the mind of our audience?
If you answered yes to all or most of these questions, then the creator characteristics may be a good fit for your brand personality.
The Audience Of The Creator Brand
Brand archetypes are used as a framework and foundation to construct a brand personality to connect with your audience on a human level.
The critical player here is your audience, understanding who they are, how they feel and what they want.
The audience of the creator should display an attraction towards these characteristics:
Self-Expression
Imagination
Creative Thinking
Originality
Change
Your audience may want to be spurred into creative action themselves or may simply want to enjoy and appreciate the originality of your brand experience.
They don’t like to do things the way they’ve always been done and are in constant search for change and a new and better direction.
Audiences that adopt creator brands through their characteristics of creative expression often develop an intense loyalty towards those brands.
Creator Brand Archetype Examples
Brands that inspire your imagination through their vision or by providing creative tools of expression, are most certainly aligned to the creator archetype.
Here are some of the household creator brand names:
Lego
Lego is a brand with history behind it and has been creating its famous bricks since 1958 with an estimated 600 billion bricks now in circulation.
The Lego brand has stood the test of time due to the originality and flexibility of the application of the bricks (not to mention it’s valuable patent).
Testament to their innovation, without changing the design of their brick since 1958, the brand continues to innovate and inspire their fans with creative forms of expression, aligning itself to the changing times of pop culture.
Their alignment to the world of movies and characters idolised by their audience (boys young and old), was an absolute masterstroke in brand strategy with every movie acting as a highly profitable 2 hour commercial.
Their product is both a tool of creative expression and enjoyment and they continue to inspire their loyal fan base as they’ve done for generations.
Apple
Arguably the most loved brand in the world (certainly in its heyday), Apple is a brand that opitimised the idea of a brand with a grand vision, (led by the unparalleled visionary himself, Mr Steve Jobs.).
To break into a market dominated by Microsoft, Apple adopted the personality of The Outlaw, encouraging their audience to break free from the shackles of the status quo.
After Jobs was fired by Apple in 1985, he repositioned a little known animation studio called Pixar and in 1994 introduced us to Woody and Buzz for the first time in Toy Story.
In 1997, after Apple had lost it’s way, Jobs was brought back in to save the company and he took with him his experience in storytelling and an even bigger vision of what Apple could be.
Apple celebrated the innovators and difference makers of the world from Pablo Picasso to Thomas Edison and in doing so aligned themselves to the Creator personality and inspired the imagination of their audience.
This was the moment the brand altered its course to become the most loved brand in the world.
Adobe
There few brands that provide their audience with tools of expression to even come close to matching Adobe.
They are a creator brand through and through and are the source of much of the visual creative expression we see in the modern world.
They know their audience well and inspire them through a consistent content strategy to express their creativity through the tools they provide.
Like many creator brand audiences, Adobe’s audience are not just product users, they’re raving fans that display loyalty and sing their advocacy from the rooftops.
How To Express Creator Characteristics
When it comes to brand personality and leveraging archetypes it’s all about displaying the right characteristics.
The ways to express characteristics are endless but here are a few examples of how the creator Archetype Characteristics can be displayed.
Inspire your audience with originality
Encourage unapologetic creative expression
Celebrate uniqueness
Facilitate collaboration
Leverage engaging visuals
Break rules
Deliver the unexpected
Create highly original content
Over To You
To connect with your audience on a human level requires brand personality.
Using archetypes as the foundation for that personality allows you to effectively match attractions to characteristics and audiences attracted to humour will love the creator personality.
Are you developing a brand personality and trying to figure out how to best appeal to your audience?
Does the creator archetype align with your audience and do you have any challenges developing a personality for your brand?
I’d love to hear from you! Leave a note in to comments below.
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Great post! Really enjoyed reading it. REQUEST: Can you write a post like this [Strategy + Examples] for HERO, CAREGIVER and SAGE. Thanks!
Hi Nida,
Glad you liked it…
I definitely have plans to wrtie more about archetypes strategy.
In the meantime, there is plenty more content on the Youtube channel regarding archetypes strategy here
https://www.youtube.com/c/brandmasteracademy
Thanks Nida
Love this post! I especially found the examples of how the creator Archetype Characteristics can be displayed useful. Anyway you can write a post about this for the other archetypes?
What are some ways to express the caregiver characteristics for example?
Protective and caring language and tones that make the audience feel safe… Warm caring imagery and colours… Stories of a caring experience
Thanks Kat… Will make a note