The Hero Archetype strives to maintain justice and fight against evil.
They want to improve the world through expert mastery and are seen as being competitive, proud, courageous. They help those who need it and have the ability to stay true to themselves, but also fear weakness and vulnerability.
When we look at brands with a hero archetype they are normally brands that try to become the best version of themselves to make the world a better place. Brands like this are determined to support and often volunteer when others won’t. They have bigger goals in mind and will challenge you to take part in your community. A larger brand that embodies the Hero Archetype would be Duracell and one brand that KV has worked with that embodies the Hero Archetype would be StartUp Canada. StartUp Canada’s goals are to:
“Help every entrepreneur by connecting local ecosystems from coast to coast to coast, empowering women to catalyze change, supporting exporters with global goals, and bridging the gap between entrepreneurs and the Government of Canada.”
They help, they empower, they are determined to catalyze change and they support. Quite the hero, StartUp Canada, quite the hero!
Now let’s break this down into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, P.S. If you haven’t seen any Marvel movies, there will be spoilers ahead!
Steve Rogers, the ultimate hero. He was a regular guy prior too, but has the Hero Archetype within him. All he wanted to do was to join the army and save people. Deep in his core, he was good, and because he was good, he was the perfect candidate for a new experiment to create a super soldier to help fight in the war against Hydra. Steve fights heroically to save all people – he is incredible at what he does and is insanely strong, courageous and proud to help, protect, and serve America. He also can go forever, he doesn’t give up and will fight till the end, his catchphrase is literally “I can do this all day” because he can for real, take a punch until the end and even lived as a young 27 year old man for quite a long time (he was frozen in ice for nearly 70 years), so he was agile and has the stamina to keep pushing forward. After Steve woke up from his extra long frozen nap, he was appointed to be the Leader of the Avengers, although the Avengers worked together and had very different personalities, Steve was the oldest Avenger, in fact, he was the very first Avenger! The very first Hero: which is why we chose Captain America as the Hero archetype.
However, we also noticed another character who fits the Hero Archetype as well. This Hero also falls into the category of the Creator! Tony Stark falls into 2 categories for Archetypes, and for good reason. In almost every movie that Iron Man appears in, he is trying to save the world. He sacrifices himself a number of times, he even gave the ultimate sacrifice of his life, to save the universe. Tony saved New York from a missile in the Avengers, he saves multiple people countless times, he helped Spiderman save the ferry in Spiderman: Homecoming. He also saved a village from terrorists way back in the first Iron Man, and in End Game he uses the infinity stones to save the universe, thus killing himself. There is no greater moment of heroism in the history of Marvel to be quite honest with you. Which is why Iron man also fits the Hero Archetype.
Brand Archetypes are an incredible thing to chat about! Love to talk branding, design, tech or marketing? Let’s talk today!
