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.
Outlaw brands aim to leave a mark on the world that everyone will remember due to its chaotic change. Your brand’s talents are outrageousness, radical freedom, and bold moves, so you will want an army to stand by you. Your brand’s voice is disruptive, rebellious, and combative and your brand's strongest motivation is liberation.
Before you get deeper into the outlaw archetype, there are some questions I want you to think about and link your answers back to your brand strategy...
What does the word liberation 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 outlaw?
As the proud owner of a brand with an outlaw 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 liberation
Liberation is what is most important to all outlaw personality types. Have you put any importance on that word or the meaning behind it?
Note. Keep in mind that liberation can be understood in many different ways. It can be seen as freedom from a physical or mental hindrance or restraint, the act of helping others escape oppression or strict rules, or a political movement.
Whatever your definition or reason behind it, look deeper into yourself and your brand and pull that innovation out.
Important! Liberation does not have to be related to going against society, government, or a higher power. It can be from internal bonds, work, or liberation from outside sources.
The reason you come up with, this is what you want to talk about with your audience and provide to them.
Liberation
The Outlaw 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 outlaw personality drives and your own brand values.
Defiant
Righteous
Revenge-driven
Independent
Revolutionary
Important! These are the drives behind outlaw 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 outlaw archetype, your goal would be to destroy what is not working. Your brand can do this through the gift of...
Radical freedom
The outlaw is ready to overturn what isn’t working. They have very pessimistic views of the world with an optimistic take that they can change it. Their core desire is revolution.
The outlaw 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 outlaw brands and compare it with your own brand purpose.
Disrupt the status quo
You can do this by finding the audience that feel at odds within society and then work on disrupting, destroying, or shocking the system. Your strongest strategy is to disrupt, destroy, or shock.
The Outlaw 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 take a look at these three examples of outlaw brands...
Harley Davidson
Virgin
Diesel
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 an outlaw
As an outlaw personality type, your brand attracts a wide range of audience. 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 outlaw personality forward through daring and chaos...
Use disruptive, rebellious, and combative language.
Lead the fray as a rule-breaker and risk-taker.
Push the envelope to bring about social change.
Force fresh perspectives or a reawakening.
Rally others behind your cause and include them in the planning.
Follow your instincts.
Reject labels, constraints, or pretty little boxes.
Show your independence through intelligence.
Be aggressive and fearless when going against the grain.
Improve the existing system rather than destroying it.
Connect with
Since the main goal of the outlaw is to destroy what is not working, this brand personality attracts all audience types that have ever had issues with a higher power. Below is a list of a few audience archetypes that are attracted to caregiver brands and what caregiver brands can use to appeal to them...
Sage. Truth, knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, factual
Explorer. Challenge, journey, unknown, change, exploration
Magician. Transformation, opportunity, fantasy, knowledge, mystery
Hero. Empowerment, inspiration, opportunity, worth, recognition
Creator. Freedom, choices, inspire, imagination, innovation
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 outlaw personality...
Make your demands then go get them
Never let anyone make you manageable
You just have to trust your own madness
Explain how you can make a mark on the world
Tip. Your audience is a fan of negative language where they can join in with a triumphant yell. Be honest and strict with your language and if it feels like you should swear, do it. Question government, society, rules, and the status quo without it being an actual question.
You can display your outlaw archetype through two main strategies...
Denounce status quo
Disrupt and shock
The Outlaw 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 outlaw voices...
Disruptive, but not unruly
Rebellious, but not factious
Combative, but not antagonistic
Passionate, but not energetic
The Outlaw 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 their 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 Outlaw weaknesses
The things that you should be most worried about as an outlaw brand are having a mediocre vision or execution. Make sure you remain powerful and effective while still being legal so you can be heard. Be careful from appearing powerless.
The five things you should avoid in your brand are...
Servitude
Conformity
Complacency
Acceptance
Dependence
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 outlaw 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.
Outlaw 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. Identifying as an outsider and pulling away from society.
Level two. Engaging in shocking or disruptive behaviors.
Level three. Becoming a revolutionary.
Outlaw sub-archetypes
There are five related sub-archetypes within the outlaw 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.
Rebel
The rebel is a rule-breaker and a risk-taker. Fed up with convention, rebels pushe the envelope to bring about social change, a fresh perspective, a reawakening, or a drastic transformation. However, with the potential to be fueled by anger and negativity, rebels must be careful not to overstep one too many boundaries in their quest for reform.
Activist
The activist fights for a cause, wanting to radically transform a current set structure or order. The activist's goal is to stand against a higher power, even if it's not on a very high level. Activists believe in the power of the people to affect change and can rally others behind their cause, as long as the power of leadership doesn't get to their heads.
Gambler
The gambler thrives on risk. There are no limits to what they are willing to bet or how far they are willing to go in order to win that bet. This can lead to addiction and compulsion, which can then be transfered over into their audience and create a cycle that is hard to break. Even so, gamblers are great at connecting with others and usually have good instincts.
Maverick
The free-thinking maverick rejects any sort of label or constraint, including the label of a maverick. With an independent streak a mile wide, mavericks display intellect, aggression, and fearlessness while going against the grain. This can lead them to isolating themselves from others and fighting for their cause alone, without any support.
Reformer
The reformer’s quest to affect change is typically a little more understated and calculated than any of the other sub-archetypes. Having said that, their results seem to have deeper and more lasting effects. Reformers are usually seen as the watchdog or whistleblower, with a way to improve the existing system rather than destroy it completely.