Chapter 2 -‐ Literature review
2.5. The theory of advertising psychology and archetypes in marketing
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McCole (2004) believes that experiential events group people according to their values, enjoyment, personality type and social group. This can create groups with quite diverse traditional segmentation characteristics. Once the brand resonates with this value set the link between individual and brand becomes emotional rather than merely functional and the customer is therefore far more likely to be loyal.
Smilansky (2009) defines the main goal of experiential marketing as “giving something positive back to the people who spend their hard-earned cash purchasing your products and services”, in this way “strengthening and building a real relationship between your customers and brands”.
2.5. The theory of advertising psychology and archetypes in marketing
Any advertisement message appeals to a potential consumer of a certain type of product or service. The effectiveness of the advertising message first and foremost depends on a research on the portrait of the consumer – determining his/her psychological and social attitudes and stereotypes, understanding his way of life. In order to predict the person's motivation and make a certain impact on it, a marketing specialist need to identify the structural elements of this person`s psyche, which can be controlled, and therefore can be changeable according to the aims which an advertiser set.
Identification of these elements, or points of impact is the main challenge of advertising psychology, which is based on the person`s psych theories developed by different psychological schools.
Recently, the theory of archetypes has become widely spread in marketing. The reasons for the popularity of this theory is the fact that, as Mark and Pearson (2002) believe, an effective and targeted advertising should base on an integral and understandable brand concept. The main condition of the integrity of the brand is provided only if it is based on the homogeneous image. This image should be simple and straightforward. And archetype is exactly such a homogeneous, simple and understandable image.
The theory of archetypes derives from the theory of analytic psychology of Swiss psychologist K. -G. Jung (1875 – 1961). In regards to marketing, applying some provisions of this theory allows to create integral brand images of products and services
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in the mind of the consumer. From the point of view of Jung`s theory, brand identity is a coherent set of archetypal characters, psychological programs, emotionally attached associations, which are closely interconnected with each other and which can strongly influence the consumer`s behavior. Beneath we will briefly explain the basic concepts of C. Jung`s theory of analytical psychology: the structure of psyche, conscious and personal unconscious, collective unconscious, and then we will try to see how they can be applied to advertising practices.
2.5.1. The structure of psyche
According to Jung (1969), we can schematically present the human psyche in the form of globe with three layers. In its center there is consciousness, which Jung (1969) called Ego. The ego is the bearer of personality, it is the organizer of our thoughts and intuitions, feelings, and sensations, and has access to memories which are not repressed.
Above it there is much more extensive layer of forgotten or repressed personal memories, feelings, and behaviors, which Jung (1969) called the personal unconscious. Above all is the collective unconscious, filled with ancient images and behavioral responses that are repeated many times in the history of mankind.
According to the ideas of Jung (1969), the human mind is holistic in nature and represents the unity of complementary and constantly interacting with each other conscious and unconscious processes.
2.5.1.1. The personal unconscious
The personal unconscious is a product of the interaction between the collective unconscious and the development of the individual during life. Jung’s (1969) definition of the personal unconscious is as follows:
“Everything of which I know, but of which I am not at the moment thinking; everything of which I was once conscious but have now forgotten; everything perceived by my senses, but not noted by my conscious mind; everything which, involuntarily and without paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the future things which
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are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness; all this is the content of the unconscious”.
2.5.1.2. The collective unconscious and archetypes
In Jungian psychology, an inherited pattern of thought or symbolic imagery derived from the past collective experience and present in the individual unconscious.
According to Jung (1971), “Archetypes are like riverbeds which dry up when the water deserts them, but which can be found again at any time. Archetype is like an old watercourse along which the water of life has flowed in this channel, the more likely it is, the sooner or later the water will return to its old bed”.
Archetypes are forms or images of a collective nature worldwide as constituents of myths and as individual products of unconscious. These are imprinted and hardwired into our psyches. Archetypes predispose us to approach life and to experience it in certain ways, according to patterns laid down in the psyche. Archetypes include figures, events and objects. These images find expression in the psyche, in behavior and in myths. It is only archetypal images that are capable of being known and coming to consciousness, the archetypes themselves are deeply unconscious and unknowable. Archetypes have a fascinating, numinous quality to them which makes them difficult to ignore, and attracts people to venerate or worship archetypal images. As Jung (1969) said, “All the most powerful ideas in history go back to archetypes”.
2.5.2. The personal unconscious and the concept of nostalgic advertising
There are different levels of psychological structure, and each of them has its own patterns of perception (in our case, the perception of advertising messages) and interaction with others. According to Brovkin (1999), an effective advertising message should affect both the conscious and the unconscious structure of the consumer`s psyche as conscious behavior is often caused by deep psychological processes and is only a reflection of the unconscious.
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One of psychological methods, which can be used in advertising, is increasing subconscious impressions in order to transfer it to the conscious, or stirring up forgotten memories. If these memories are pleasant, the pleasure caused by them can be transferred to the product and its brand image (Brovkin, 1999).
In his research Hirsch (1992) found out that nostalgic feelings and thoughts drive the behavior of people.
Goulding (2001) proves that nostalgia is a part of people’s consumption experience and, therefore, a part of preference or choice.
Reisenwitz, Iyer, and Cutler (2004) consider nostalgia an important marketing topic (that influences trends in designing, decorating, entertaining, collecting, retailing, media, arts, and advertising. When experiencing nostalgia in a consumption context, consumers are supposed to show higher purchase likelihood with regard to the advertised products (Reisenwitz et al, 2004).
According to the ideas of Sierra and McQuitty (2007) people are often not only influenced by immediate circumstances, but also by their pasts and their anticipated futures. Consumers cannot return to the past, but they can try to preserve it through nostalgic consumption activities (Sierra and McQuitty, 2007). Consumers who are exposed to a nostalgic advertisement, are supposed to transfer evoked memories of former times to products; thus, having nostalgic feelings as well as having mental images of former times in mind may positively influence consumers’ judgment processes, which results in more favorable product evaluations (Sierra and McQuitty 2007).
2.5.3. The archetypes of collective unconscious and advertising
Geraschenko (2006) pointed out that the human brain uses the archetypes of the collective unconscious to facilitate the process of decoding information to response to it rapidly. No extra efforts are required to interpret the meaning of the advertising image, based on archetypes, because the interpretation inherited from our predecessors can be easily and quickly reproduced in our minds.
Mark and Pearson (2002) believe that the best way to create emotional affinity through meaning is to use archetypal images to fulfill “basic human desires and motivations and evoke deep emotions and yearnings”. The narratives and meanings behind archetypes let
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customers relate to brands by making brands seem alive. The authors list twelve archetypes arranged along four groups of motivations. Each archetype fulfills a deep- seated need. Table 3 classifies the twelve archetypes.
2.5.4. Ethno-‐cultural archetypes
Besides universal cultural archetypes mentioned above, there are ethno-cultural ones.
Although these archetypes have a more narrow range of influence, they are the “constants of national spirit”, as Pendikova and Rakitina (2008) describe them, because they express fundamental properties of the ethnic group as a cultural entity. It is difficult to overestimate ethno-cultural archetypes in every national culture, since they determine the characteristics of art, historical destiny, character and outlook of the people who belong to the given culture (Pendikova & Rakitina, 2008). These archetypes represent in condensed form the collective experience and mental characteristics of ethnic groups.
Ethno-cultural symbols include mythological and legendary characters and personalities of a given ethnic group, real historical events, national heroes, etc. Pendikova and Rakitina (2008) suggest that these characters can be incorporated into advertising images.
Advertising, based on these characters, brings positive emotions (feelings of pride, belonging, patriotism), to the viewer, its semantic content is easily decoded and interpreted correctly by any representative of the nation. These advertising images can easily find the way to the heart of the Russian consumer, as they convey in the most distinct way a unique national character of the Russian people.
According to Pivneva (2003), the most fundamental images of the Russian cultural archetypes are the wise woman, the hero and the leader.
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