The Jester Brand Archetype is the most light-hearted and fun loving of all 12 archetypes.
A brand that wants to connect through personality can use the characteristics of the jester to connect by entertaining.
Some audiences gravitate towards brands that make them smile (or laugh out loud).
If you’re considering using the brand personality of The Jester to connect with your audience, this article will tell you what you need to know.
Who Is The Jester Brand Archetype?
The jester personality is young at heart and doesn’t take life too seriously.
They don’t care for status or the seriousness or gloom of everyday struggles and they go out of their way to be the ray of sunshine in everyone’s day.
Their mantra is:
We’re here for a good time, not a long time
The Jester is an optimistic person and see’s the good in bad situation and if there is little good, they’ll just laugh at the bad.
The life of the party and a seeker of the limelight, the Jester has a self-appointed duty to ensure anyone within their vicinity is the beneficiary of their well-intended joy.
The Jester Personality Key Characteristics
The Jester is driven by the core desire for:
LAUGHTER
The Jester is constantly searching for or displaying
Fun
Happiness
Enjoyment
Positivity
While they’re constantly running from and fear
Gloom
Boredom
Sadness
Loneliness
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The Jester Archetype Brand Strategy
If your brand exists to entertain your audience through humour, the Jester is an obvious choice for your brand personality.
With that said, you don’t need to be in the business of making people laugh for your brand to benefit from the human emotions laughter evokes.
The strategic association made with The Jester Characteristics are that of:
“Enjoyment”.
Here are some hilarious examples of brands taking to the mic on social media.
The strategic association made with The Jester Characteristics are that of:
“Enjoyment”.
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When To Use The Jester Archetype
Whether directly or indirectly, if you want your audience to associate your brand with the feeling or experience of enjoyment then the Jester characteristics can play an effective role in making that connection.
When To Avoid The Jester Archetype
Use The Jester archetype with caution if there is an element of seriousness in the solution your brand offers. Most people will, in this instance, seek security and trust and this not the strength of the Jester Archetype.
Typical Jester Industries
There are many brands in the business of entertainment or humour, though making money from the laughter of your audience, is not a necessity to adopt the Jester Archetype.
From men’s care to confectionery to alcohol, brands that have a hand in the experience of “enjoyment” can leverage their sense of humour and associate their brand with good times.
Typical Jester industries include:
Entertainment
Men’s Care
Alcohol
Confectionery
Play / Impulse Products
Is My Brand A Jester Brand?
If you’re considering using the Jester brand archetype personality to resonate with your audience, then the following questions will guide your decision:
Is our solution associated with happy / fun times?
Is our brand used at any stage during or on the journey to enjoyment?
Will our audience embrace light-hearted messaging?
Do the Jester characteristics align with our position we want to own in the mind of our audience?
Is there a common enemy we can poke fun at?
If you answered yes to all or most of these questions, then the Jester characteristics may be a good fit for your brand personality.
The Audience Of The Jester Brand
Brand archetypes are used as a foundation to develop a brand personality to resonate with your audience on a human level.
The key player here is your audience, understanding who they are, how they feel and what they want.
The audience of the Jester should display an attraction towards these characteristics:
Fun-Loving
Light-hearted
Playful
Cheerful
Festive
Your audience appreciates a break from monotony and a sprinkle of laughter in their day.
Although they may have serious jobs, they aren’t attracted to that seriousness and often go in search of an escape from it.
Jester brands resonate with their audience most effectively when they display language and terminology that aligns with their sense of humour.
Jester Brand Archetype Examples
Brands that make you laugh through their advertisements, imagery, website copy and social posts, likely have an element of the Jester archetype in their personality.
Here are some of the household brand names:
Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club is an example of a brand who used the Jester Archetype characteristics to differentiate themselves from the market leader Gillette.
They connected with their audience by pointing to the high-price and unnecessary features of the industry king Gillette, with a refreshing dose of wit, dry humour and “I don’t give a sh*t” attitude.
Their hilarious inaugural Youtube video was watched by 3 million people in a matter of days and put them on the map.
5 years later they were sold to Unilever for 1 Billion dollars, and today continue to use the much-loved Jester archetype characteristics to connect with their audience.
M&M’s
M&M’s, America’s most loved candy, hit a plateau in the early 90’s having been a favourite since the war.
Advertising agency BBDO were brought in shake things up and came up with simple characters based on the colours of the candy, each with their own humorous characteristics, making their debut at the Super Bowl.
Today, M&M’s characters continue to use humour to be a ray of sunshine in the audiences day and have kept the brand at the top of their category.
Old Spice
Another brand with a long history, Old Spice had been around since 1937.
In the 90’s it became known as a middle of the road, middle-aged, middle-class brand that was in need of a change in direction.
Old spice changed direction through their personality.
They kept their original masculine characteristics but added a good dose of humour and began appealing to younger generations.
By 2004 they were back in pole position with 20% of the billion dollar market, and their 2010 campaign “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign has gone down as a master class in advertising comedy.
How To Express Jester 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 Jester Archetype Characteristics can be displayed:
Poke fun at a shared enemy
Use sarcasm in your copy
Use a comedic image style
Sprinkle humour into your video content
Create a comical character
Challenge a competitor with comedy
Highlight laughable problems in the industry
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 Jester personality.
Are you developing a brand personality and trying to figure out how to best appeal to your audience?
Does the Jester suit 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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