This book addresses the critical need, and the tremendous opportunity, to create, preserve, protect, and nurture brand meaning by leveraging its deep archetypal roots.

Archetypes mediate between products and customer motivation by providing an intangible experience of meaning. Figure 1.4 identifies the archetypes most important to the fulfillment of the four basic human needs.

News stories that really grip public attention always have an archetypal quality, Richard observes. “When the next big story breaks, we’ll all be caught again,” he says, because each story that so mysteriously grabs us is some version of “Once upon a time . . .”—a mythic tale acted out in real life.

The meaning of a brand is its most precious and irreplaceable asset. Whether you’re selling a soft drink or a presidential candidate, what your brand means to people will be every bit as important as its function—if not more so—because it is meaning that tells us “this one feels right” or “this one’s for me.” Meaning speaks to the feeling or

Access to the Internet gives them information about brands and companies, so what you say had better be the truth. If not, they surely will find out.

Maslow is best known for defining the “hierarchy of needs,” which describes how human desires evolve as more primary needs are met.

These archetypal images and scenes call people to fulfill their basic human needs and motivations (in the previous examples, freedom and identity, achievement, and intimacy, respectively). In an ideal world, the product serves a mediating function between a need and its fulfillment. A

For example, many for-profit firms (Microsoft, for one) are living out the value of becoming the premier company in the entire industry (the Ruler).

many politicians who fail to get either elected or reelected never establish a consistent archetypal identity.