An effective brand personality is something your audience can relate to and interact with. In order to get this feeling, your brand personality should have a set of human characteristics: make your brand more human.
Heroic brands aim to leave a mark on the world through competence and courage, showing everyone how it’s done both as a leader and team player. Your brand’s main talents are competence and courage, so you will want to reveal your strengths. Your brand’s voice is honest, candid, and brave and your brand's strongest motivation is mastery.
Before you get deeper into the hero archetype, there are some questions I want you to think about and link your answers back to your brand strategy...
What does the word mastery mean to you and your audience?
What adjectives you would use to describe your brand?
What is the purpose behind your brand’s existence?
What are some brands you look up to and aspire to become like?
What drives the hero?
As the proud owner of a brand with a hero personality, you will want to have something behind your brand to help push it forward and to grow. These are your brand purpose and brand vision.
Remember that brand purpose is internal, it is what drives you and your brand to continue, and brand vision is the long-term goal you want to achieve.
Providing mastery
Mastery is what is most important to all Hero personality types. Have you put any importance on that word or the meaning behind it?
Note. Keep in mind that mastery can be understood in many different ways. It can be a physical want to be the best at a specific task, an inner want to have mastery over oneself, or an idealistic vision to reach perfection and improve the world.
Whatever your definition or reason behind it, look deeper into yourself and your brand and pull that innovation out.
Important! Mastery does not refer to being in charge or in control of others. In this case, mastery means having comprehensive knowledge or skill in a specific subject!
The reason you come up with, this is what you want to talk about with your audience and provide to them.
Mastery
The hero drives
When you were thinking of adjectives to describe your brand, these can be linked or related to your brand values. You already know all about brand values and you have your own and a few brand value statements.
Now, I want you to link the hero personality drives and your own brand values.
Competence
Courageous
Brave
Defensive
Growth-oriented
Important! These are the drives behind hero personalities. If they don’t match your brand values, that is okay! Instead of looking at them as value words, look at them as the result you and your clients will have after working together.
As the hero archetype, your goal would be to exert mastery in a way that improves the world. Your brand can do this through the gift of...
Courage
Also, the hero archetype instinctively seeks to protect and inspire others, while also leaving a mark on the world, often at the risk of great sacrifice. Their core desire is to prove worth through difficult action.
The hero purpose
Every brand is as unique as the person that stands behind it. Even so, we use categories and archetypes, and different classifications to better understand how we fit with others.
Keeping that in mind, I want you to review the purpose behind hero brands and compare it with your own brand purpose.
You want to master something in a way that improves the world.
You can do this by being honest, candid, and brave. Your strongest strategy is to become as competent as possible.
The hero examples
When you were working on your brand positioning, you got to look for aspirations for what you want your brand to become. You already have your own goals, but I want you to take a look at these three examples of hero brands...
Nike
United States Marine Corps
Canadian Red Cross
I want you to ask yourself if any of them could be an aspiration for your own brand and if so, how.
Note. Remember that we are not talking about the product here, but the brand personality that sells it (or the cost of said products and services).
How to reach out as a hero
As a hero personality type, your brand attracts a wide range of audiences. No matter who you are addressing, though, your goal is to help them grow.
Here are some tips on how to talk to your audience and put your hero personality forward by showing you are competent and courageous...
Use powerful, influential, and faithful language.
Promote transformation and ignore self-importance.
Be a team player and a leader when it’s required.
Show tactical and strategic ways to get to a solution.
Promote discipline and be achievement-oriented.
Share achievements and celebrate the small wins.
Help others in need, even if outside of your field of influence.
Show intuitive thinking and sensibilities.
Fight for the powerless and remain morally strong.
Never give up and promote your audience to follow.
Connect with
Since the main goal of the hero is to exert mastery in a way that improves the world, this brand personality attracts a wide range of audiences, but it mostly attracts other Heroes.. Below is a list of other archetypes that are attracted to hero brands and what hero brands can use to appeal to them...
Innocent. Trust, honesty, positivity, safety, connection, inner beauty
Explorer. Challenge, journey, unknown, change, exploration
Outlaw. Revolution, change, challenge, encouraging, empowering
Everyperson. Belonging, normality, connection, honesty, friendliness
Caregiver. Warmth, thoughtfulness, generosity, safety, security
Start creating content for your audience
As part of your brand strategy, you already know who your people are and where to find them. Now, it's time to talk to them! Here are a few content and conversation prompts you can use to display your hero personality...
Become stronger so you can be better
We can make the world better
We have the grid to outwork the rest
Explain how you can leave a mark on the world
Tip. Your audience cares a lot more about action than preparation. As such, use videos, live feeds, create challenges, and show off when you achieve your goals. In addition, support your audience when they do the same thing and even, if you can, join in on any challenges they have created.
You can display your hero archetype through two main strategies...
Become stronger and better
Prove people wrong
The hero voice
Your brand voice is a unique element of your brand’s communication with your audience. It remains consistent throughout all the content that you create.
You will be working on finding your brand voice after this module, however, your brand voice has input from both you and your brand personality. In addition, a brand voice is often characterized by both what it is and what it isn’t. Here are some examples of hero voices...
Honest, but not frank
Candid, but not outspoken
Brave, but not reckless
Assertive, but not aggressive
The hero character
You now know a lot more about your brand personality. You have a character, a brand that is a separate entity that will interact and befriend your audience. This character has its own goals, values, and ambitions, as you’ve discovered when working on your brand positioning and core.
But, if we want to make them more human, we want to add a bit extra to it.
At the moment, your brand’s personality is too perfect and structured. Your brand can become more human by being open with its fears, weaknesses, and characteristics.
Knowing these, will help you battle against them and, since there is no person out that doesn’t have these, you will make your brand more approachable to your audience.
The Hero weaknesses
The things you should be most worried about are coming across as incompetent, cowardly, or incapable. Make sure to show your strengths often and loudly. On the other hand, be careful not to come across as arrogant or full of yourself, showing any weakness, or quitting.
The five things you should avoid in your brand are...
Showing any incompetence
Cowardice
Deterioration
Downfall
Incapability
Now consider your audience.
You’ve written their problems and emotions in your ideal client bio, so take a look at all the negative emotions in there and see if they connect with any of these fears. If so, then these are things you can help them with, as they are dangerous for you and your brand too.
Niching the hero down
Twelve personalities may seem very limiting, especially when you start thinking that there are almost 8 billion people on earth, half of them are on social media, and all of them fall into these twelve categories.
However, you can narrow your personality down to make it more unique to you. Every archetype has three levels and five sub-archetypes.
Note. Keep in mind that both of these are not static! They change over time as you and your brand evolve.
Hero levels
The three different levels for each archetype are based on the development within that personality. That means the lower level is less mature while the higher level is more developed.
This is linked to your brand’s vision, figuring out what point you are at now and how your brand personality can grow with your brand, the closer you get to your vision.
Level one. Competence is demonstrated through achievement or victory.
Level two. Faithfully serving others, often out of duty, commitment, or conviction.
Level three. Uses strength and courage to make the world better, with the greatest level of sacrifice.
Hero sub-archetypes
There are five related sub-archetypes within the caregiver archetype, which emerge based on particular attributes that are visible within that archetype. That means each sub-archetype has different attributes. This is linked to your brand values and helps you split yourself from the collective within your archetype.
Hero
The hero is represented by sacrifice, courage, faith, and strength. This archetype lives to triumph over adversity and will overcome great odds to facilitate transformation in both themselves and those they support. The downfall for the hero may be triggered by an exaggerated sense of self-importance.
Warrior
The warrior is fearless and has a strong sense of duty coupled with a healthy dose of bravery. Add to this a tactical mode of attack and the warrior displays very strong strategy skills based on personal experience. Warriors should be careful from falling into the victory-at-all-costs mentality, in which they become too aggressive and lose track of their audience.
Athlete
The athlete’s goals revolve around physical ability and mental focus. They are disciplined and achievement-oriented and are relentless in pursuit of their goals. It is natural for them to desire to be bigger, stronger, faster, and better. But they must be careful not to bully or harm others into helping them achieve their goals or ignoring their audience's goals.
Rescuer
The rescuer swoops in to help others in need and during times of dire circumstances. This, unfortunately, can lead to the misguided need to save someone just to prove their own worth or from a situation they believe is dangerous but is not. Additionally, they have to be careful not to make their audience completely dependent on only them.
Liberator
Fighting on behalf of the disenfranchised and powerless, the liberator is a champion for humanitarian rights, justice, and equality. With strong convictions and resolute hope, liberators do not accept defeat. Be careful not to fall into the mindset of the end to justify the means, by ignoring morality or going revenge-seeking.