The Jester - Brand archetype
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 that make you
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 that make your brand more human.
Jester brands create relationships around happiness and laughter. Your brand’s main talent is joy and the strongest strategies to achieve that are to be funny, make jokes, and play with your audience using your enjoyment for life and living in the moment. Your brand’s voice is fun-loving, playful, and optimistic and your brand's strongest motivation is enjoyment.
Before you get deeper into the jester archetype, there are some questions I want you to think about and link your answers back to your brand strategy...
What does the word enjoyment 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 jester?
As the proud owner of a brand with an jester 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 enjoyment
Enjoyment is what is most important to all jester personality types. Have you put any importance on that word or the meaning behind it?
Note. Keep in mind that enjoyment can be understood in many different ways. It can be the physical act of providing joy to others, the inner feel of having joy taken into yourself, or the act of bringing a smile to everyone's faces.
Whatever your definition or reason behind it, look deeper into yourself and your brand and pull that innovation out.
Important! Enjoyment does not always have to mean funny! It can be a more subtle sense of happiness and relaxation.
The reason you come up with, this is what you want to talk about with your audience and provide to them.
Enjoyment
The Jester 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 jester personality drives and your own brand values.
Funny
Happy
Positive
Encouraging
Entertaining
Important! These are the drives behind jester 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 jester archetype, your goal would be to have a great time and lighten up the world. Your brand can do this through the gift of...
Joy
Also, the jester is always looking for a fun time and to make sure everyone connected with them is enjoying themselves. They live in the moment with full enjoyment of every second of it. Their core desire is to live in the moment with full enjoyment.
The jester 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 jester brands and compare it with your own brand purpose.
Have a great time and lighten up the world.
You can do this by promoting good times and making your audience laugh. Your strongest strategy to do this is to make everyone laugh and have a good time, by being funny and playful.
The Jester 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 jester brands...
Geico
The Onion
Old Spice
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 jester
As a jester 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 jester personality forward, as someone who is funny and friendly...
Use fun-loving, playful, and optimistic language.
Foster a fun-loving culture between your audience.
Be clever and quirky in your messages.
Promote people to see differently and question everything.
Say it like you see it, no matter what.
Be playful and cater to your audience’s wants.
Highlight the absurd by making fun and entertaining.
Use charm so you don’t come off as rude or offensive.
Use an in-your-face mentality when talking.
Navigate multiple situations with the same level of joy.
Connect with
Since the main goal of the jester is to have a great time and lighten up the world, this brand personality attracts a wide range of audiences, including most of the other archetypes. 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...
Innocent. Trust, honesty, positivity, safety, connection, inner beauty
Lover. Attractive, passion, desire, belonging, intimacy
Everyperson. Belonging, normality, connection, honesty, friendliness
Caregiver. Warmth, thoughtfulness, generosity, safety, security
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 jester personality...
If I can’t dance, I’m not part of it
Let your hair down and start living
Life really isn’t that serious
Explain how you connect with others
Tip. Unlike most of the other brand personalities, the jester attracts pretty much everyone. Everyone wants to have a laugh and a good time. Make sure, if you are aiming towards a different audience, that you time your jokes right so you can be remembered as something different for them, not obnoxious.
You can display your jester archetype through two main strategies...
Promote good times
Make people laugh
The Jester 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 jester voices...
Fun loving, but not childish
Playful, but not mischievous
Optimistic, but not rosy
Joking, but not flippant
The Jester 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 Jester weaknesses
The things you should be most worried about as a jester brand are being bored or boring others. Make sure not to be frivolous or waste time, either your own or that of your audience. You’re the life of the party, own up to it. Be careful from boredom or being boring.
The five things you should avoid in your brand are...
Boredom
Gloom
Sadness
Loneliness
Negativity
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 jester 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.
Jester 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. Life is a game. The only important thing is to have fun.
Level two. Combining fun so cleverness and innovation are developed.
Level three. Life is in the moment and each day lived to the fullest.
Jester sub-archetypes
There are five related sub-archetypes within the jester 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.
Jester
The jester thinks of life as a playground. Jesters have a penchant for irreverent antics and an appreciation for the same. They live fully in each moment and are able to reframe perspectives. Jesters are unafraid to speak out and can challenge convention in refreshing ways. Unfortunately, this can make them too insensitive or insolent.
Entertainer
The entertainer is playful and caters to an audience. Entertainers give people a good show and that is all that matters to them. They are quick-witted and highly adaptable and can match any situation to find the joy in it. Unfortunately, this leads them to having a constant need for stimulation and feedback, making them somewhat needy and dependent.
Clown
The clown hides behind a mask in order to create distance. They don't want to be involved in serious or taboo topics, and if they must explore them, it's from a distance. Clowns highlight the absurd in order to poke fun and entertain at the same time. However, clowns are prone to exaggeration and drama with the purpose to make others laugh.
Provocateur
The provocateur may be controversial and polarizing but does so with charm and charisma. As a natural communicator and with an in-your-face mentality, provocateurs stir up change and make their audience question themselves, the system, and their entertainer. This can lead them to coming off as rude and offensive, or be ignored completely.
Shapeshifter
The shapeshifter acts as a chameleon and is able to navigate varying situations and levels of consciousness. Shapeshifters challenge others to question their assumptions. They are a catalyst to help others see things differently, which can lead to an inherent instability that comes with being so adaptable and blending in.