DEFINING BRAND USING JUNG’S ARCHETYPES

When attempting to boil down and detail out the attributes that should ideally define the core of Titan watches, there was a gut feeling that could no longer be ignored - the attributes that existed as words felt dry and lifeless. At this point, conversations had been penned down with all the major stakeholders and a significant amount of time had been spent collecting information and attempting to make sense of it through mapping and cluster formation. One of the core skills of a designer is to be able to make sense of chaos or ambiguity and in that effort, a lot had been resolved. However, there were still questions that were unanswered.

For example, the word ‘adventurous’ could feature as a brand attribute of both Fastrack and G-Shock watches, and yet the outcomes were so very different - While the G-Shock interpretation is to explore the outdoors, the Fastrack interpretation is to break rules that you haven’t before. Both these interpretations did justice to the word ‘adventurous’ in their own right but were different in a way that had not be worked into the structure laid down to define the brand.

It was in the search of how to account for these nuances at a structural level that one came across Carl Jung’s 12 brand archetypes. When looking at the archetypes, one could assert the previous branding efforts a place. The first branding effort done in 1984 was done in line with the ‘Hero’ archetype. This was a point when Titan was all about creating a positive impact in the world. Later in 2002, Sujata Keshavan’s rebranding of Titan marked the company’s move from being about timekeeping to being about lifestyle and fashion. This was in line with the ‘Explorer’ archetype where the company wanted to offer its users ‘emotional travels’ to project to the multiple facets of a single person. Today things were much more nebulous than in the past and the way the company communicated needed to be looked at to assert an archetype for the current brand. In the following pages, you will see how Titan’s voice across media platforms was considered to get an accurate picture of what the company was about today. Looking at ads on YouTube, facebook and instagram, all the ‘hashtags’ were jotted down and common thread in the story arc was sought out. The more information one consumed, the more it became clear that Titan as a brand fell into the region of brand archetypes that pursued connection. There were tones of intimacy, love, passion, warmth and sensuality. At the same time there were currents of light-hearted humor and notions of being down to earth.

The Titan jingle that is one of the most memorable things about Titan has been extracted from Mozart’s symphony 25 is the part of the symphony that inspires a feeling a jubilation. Titan’s mission statement talks about creating uplifting experiences for its customers.