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Transforming Brand Archetype Using Package Graphics: An Empirical Study

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 Toney Sebastian et al. / International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

Transforming Brand Archetype Using

Package Graphics: An Empirical Study
Toney Sebastian, Pradeep G. Yammiyavar
Dept. of Design, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, India
toney@iitg.ernet.in, pradeep@iitg.ernet.in

Stevan Jones
Procter & Gamble Singapore
jones.s@pg.com
Abstract—Brand archetypes are widely used as a way to establish user-brand relationships. Designer
plays a critical role in creation of brand archetypes, by incorporating relevant design elements in designs
across all user touch points. A study among Indian users was conducted to investigate effect of design
elements of package graphics on transformation of brand Archetypes. The study revealed that user
perception of brand archetype can be changed by changing design elements of package graphics, without
affecting the brand name or shape of the package.
Keywords—brand archetypes, Indian users, package graphics
I. INTRODUCTION
A competitive market place has different types of users, with varying needs. To win in a market place,
companies must identify the types of the users that it can serve most profitably, and employ user-driven
marketing strategies that build the right relationships with the users [1]. Most companies have already moved
from a mass marketing strategy towards user driven, target marketing strategies i.e., identifying market
segments, selecting one or more of them, and developing products and marketing programs tailored to each.
Today, there is a proliferation of brands in Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector. Brands of varying
shapes, sizes, texture and other distinctive features are available based on user’s tastes and traditions. These
brands awake interests in the users on the basis of the characteristics they hold. A successful brand creates a
long binding relationship with its users. Companies create and use archetypes as way for establishing user brand
relationship. Usually, brand managers define the desired brand archetype for their brands based on target user
behavior understanding. Designers play an important role in implementing the indented brand archetypes by
using the suitable design elements across user touch points.
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
The area of brand archetypes and brand personality has attracted considerable amount of academic research [2 -
9]. According to Aaker 1997, brand personality is a set of human characteristics associated with the brand [2].
Several researchers have investigated creation of brand personality using design elements. Klink and Athaide [3]
investigated creation of brand personality using brand name. By testing four pairs of fictitious brand names
differing only in terms of their vowels, they found that a Ruggedness personality can be formed better by using
back vowels, as opposed to front vowels, while Sophistication and Sincerity personalities can be better created
using with front vowels.
Patin-Sohier, Decrop, and Bree [4] studied effect of color and shape of the package on perception of brand
personality in mineral water and coffee categories. Their analysis showed significant effect of shape of the
mineral water package on Sophistication and Excitement dimensions while color affected Competence,
Sophistication and Excitement. For Coffee tin, color influenced Excitement, Sophistication and Competence
dimensions, while shape only affected the Ruggedness. Boudreaux and Palmer [5] investigated effect of design
elements of package labels of wine products, on perception of brand personality. They evaluated 90
experimental wine labels developed using all possible combinations of three layouts, six colors and five
illustration objects. Their study revealed that, among design elements, illustration used on the label has the
greatest impact on perceptions of brand personality, by having significant effect on all brand personality facets,
greater effect than color or layout. Perception brand personality among Indian users also attracted researchers
attention. Sheena and Naresh [6] investigated the personalities of various FMCG brands in the Indian market to
evaluate the extent of contribution of brand personality to the market success of the brand. Ten successful Indian
brands were assessed against fifteen personality traits such as Sincere, Flavoring, Sentimental, Friendly, Trendy,
Young, Unique, Exciting, Modern, Reliable, Successful, Glamorous, Feminine, Masculine and inspiring. Their
study showed that ‘Sentimental’ feature is commonly present among all the ten successful brands while Young,
Successful and Inspiring characteristics were present in most of the brands.

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Although several researches investigated brand personality, there is debate over whether human personality
characteristics are the best way to express brand personality types. Reference [7] studied how users describe
their own personalities and brand personalities, and found that the Big Five model of personality [2] matched up
only when subjects describe their own personalities. They suggested that, factors required to describe human
personality and factors needed for the description of brands are unlikely to match. Mark and Pearson [8]
suggested archetypes as a system for brands to manage meanings. Archetypes are based in psychological
concepts developed by psychologist C.G. Jung [9], who described archetypes as intrinsic images within
perception that repeat across cultures and generations. Archetypal psychology helps to understand the intrinsic
meaning of product categories and help companies to create enduring brand identities that establish market
dominance [8]. Resulting system described 12 archetypes: Creator, Caregiver, Ruler, Jester, Regular Guy,
Lover, Hero, Outlaw, Magician, Innocent, Explorer, and Sage.
Within brand design, package design has significant importance. Several researchers have advocated usage of
packaging a powerful medium of user communication, because of its wide reach to potential buyers [10, 11].
According to Vyas [12] user’s choice of product is greatly influenced by design elements of package. Silayoi
and Speece [13] found that visual elements of the package help the product to standout within the competitive
clutter. Considering the amount researches in brand personality, archetypes and package graphics, research
involving brand and package graphics would be interesting for the practitioners. Although several researchers
have investigated creation of brand personality and archetype using design, researches in the area of
transforming an existing archetype using package graphic is scarce. Such learning would be interesting for
brand managers and designers as it provide the company a way of targeting new user groups without making
major changes like brand name or package shape. Given the debates over using human characteristics to
describe brand [7, 8], we use Archetype model proposed by [8] as foundation of our research.
III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Current study employed a quantitative Image test, for understanding the effect of design elements in perception
of brand archetypes. Image tests using traditional quantitative researches are widely used in package design
research [11]. Companies use the insights from quantitative researches for optimizing the designs [14]. A pre-
test was conducted among 11 students of Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IITG), who are natives of
different parts of India, using package graphics of hair care products to identify a package design with
characteristics of “regular guy” brand archetype. For main test, a modified version of the design was developed
with the help of a professional designer. The archetypal characteristics of both designs were assessed using an
online survey among 53 Indian users, with a good mix of female and male population, and age group of 15-44.
The main test was conducted in August 2016.
A. Pre-test
A pre-test was conducted using package graphics of eight global and domestic hair care products, with the
objective to identify a design with “regular guy” archetypal characteristics. Hair care product was selected
because of the user familiarity with the category, irrespective of gender. Package graphics used for the pre-test
was selected using purposive sampling technique. Eleven students of IITG were participated in the pretest.

Fig. 1. Design elements such as cap coloring, cap opening area coloring, and ingredient visualization used in original and modified designs.
Original is presented on the left and modified is presented on the right.

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Participants were asked to rate each of the designs against several keywords such as ‘beautiful’, ‘premium’,
ordinary, etc… using a five point Likert scale.The design that scored lowest for ‘premium’ and highest for
‘ordinary’ was chosen for the main test as it best fit the “regular guy” characteristics defined by Mark and
Pearson [8].
B. Main Test
A modified version of the design selected from the pre-test was developed with the help of a professional
designer by incorporating design elements required to increase aesthetic acceptance as proposed by [15, 16].
Modifications made are, enhancing color of the package, changing cap opening color to gold, adding a gold
band on the cap, changing the ingredient visual on package and reducing overall cluttering by removing less
important text information. The primary color, shape and brand name were kept unchanged. Design elements
used for making the modifications are presented in Fig. 1. The archetypal features of both the images were
assessed using an online survey among 53 Indian users, recruited using social media from August 21-24 2016.
The user group had a mix of 15 females, 33 males, and 5 users who preferred not to disclose the gender. 44 of
the participants were working professionals, and 9 were students with an age group of 15-44. Designs were
presented one after another, together with definitions of 12 archetypes. Definition of the archetypes proposed by
[8] was used for the study, presented in Table 1. Users were asked to select all the archetypes that they believe
matches the images.
IV. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The assessment of archetypes of modified and original designs revealed that over 90 percentage of users
perceived that the modified design has archetypal differences compared to the original design. The results of
user assessments are presented in Fig. 2. The most dominant archetype of original design as perceived by the
users was “Regular Guy” receiving 47% of users agreement, followed by Lover (36%), Innocent (32%) and
Caregiver (26%). The most dominant archetype of modified design as perceived by users was Creator (35% of
users agreement) followed by Innocent (32%), Lover (28%), and Hero (26%). Archetypes Regular guy, Creator
and Magician received over 10% differences in user agreements between original and modified designs. The
biggest difference was for Regular Guy with modified design receiving 32% lesser user agreements compared to
original design. The second biggest difference was for Creator with modified design receiving 17% more user
agreements as compared to original design. Magician archetype received 11% more user agreements for
modified design. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the noticeable suppression of Regular Guy
characteristic and improvement in Creator and Magician characteristics in the improved design are driven by use
of golden colored design elements in modified design. Innocent and Lover archetypes were dominant in both
original and modified designs, which could be driven by the primary package color “white”. Archetypes Lover,
Jester and Outlaw were least influenced by the design modification, with Lover and Jester receiving no
difference and Outlaw receiving only 2% difference.
TABLE I. DEFINITION OF ARCHETYPES USED FOR MAIN STUDY [8]

Archetypes Definition of Archetypes

Creator This brand helps people to try new things in a creative way.
This brand is caring, compassionate, and generous for their customers and society in
Caregiver
general. .
Ruler This brand shows leadership and takes its responsibility.
Jester This brand entertains people in a clownish and funny way.
Regular Guy This brand is accessible for everyone, because it represents the normal guy or woman.
Lover This brand has a loving relationship with its environment.
Hero This brand gives customers courage, power, and self-esteem.
This rebellious brand changes existing situations and is not led by the usual social
Outlaw
conventions.
Magician This brand helps people to create changes in their lives.
Innocent This brand gives people a happy and positive approach to life.
Explorer This brand helps people to achieve freedom and independence.
This brand uses intelligence and analysis to understand the world and to develop
Sage
themselves

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Fig. 2. Results of user assessment of archetype characteristics of original and improved design. On the Y axis number of users selected
each of the archetype is presented (N=53).

V. DISCUSSION
Current study suggests that brand archetypal characteristics can be modified by the changing design elements of
package graphics. On a ‘white’ colored primary package, use of golden colored design elements would help in
suppressing Regular Guy characteristic and improves Creator and Magician characteristics. Modifying the
package graphics with golden colored design elements would help the brand to target users who want to try
things in a creative way, or people who want to create changes in their lives, as opposed to targeting ‘everyone’.
Although prior researchers like [3] proposed creation of brand personality using brand names, such as approach
is not useful for transforming an existing brand’s archetype. Changing design elements of package graphics is
not the only way of changing brand archetypes as archetypes are created using all elements of a marketing mix.
However, the findings from current study gives a relatively easier and inexpensive way of modifying archetypes
of existing brand compared to modifying more expensive brand elements like shape of the package or brand
name. Additional studies using packages of different package colors are required to understand scalability of the
findings. Further, designers and managers would be also interested in researches in the area of transformation of
other archetypes such as Outlaw, Jester, Innocent, etc using design elements.
REFERENCES
[1] P. Kotler and G. Armstrong, Principles of Marketing, 14th ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2012.
[2] J. L. Aaker, “Dimensions of brand personality,” J.Mark. Res., vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 347-356, August 1997.
[3] R.R. Klink and G.A. Athaide, “Creating brand personality with brand names,” Mark Lett vol. 23, pp 109–117, March 2011.
[4] G. Patin-Sohier, A. Decrop, and J. Bree, “An empirical investigation of the product’s package as an antecedent of brand personality,”
Innov. Mark., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 69- 80, 2005.
[5] C.A.Boudreaux and S.E. Palmer, “A charming little cabernet: Effects of wine label design on purchase intent and brand personality,”
Int. K. wine Bus. Res., vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 170 – 186, 2007.
[6] Sheena and G. Naersh, “Do brand personalities make a difference to consumers?,” Procedia – Soc. Behav. Sci. vol. 37, pp. 31 – 37,
December 2012.
[7] G.V. Caprara, C. Barbaranelli, and G. Guido, “Brand personality: How to make the metaphor fit?,” J. Econ. Psychol., vol. 22, pp. 377–
395, June 2001.
[8] M. Mark and C. Pearson, The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes. New York,
NY: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
[9] C.F. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Princeton, NJ: Bollingen. 1954.
[10] J. Behaeghel, Brand Packaging - the Permanent Medium, London: Architecture Design and Technology Press, 1991.
[11] R. Rettie and C. Brewer, “The verbal and visual components of package design,” J. Prod. & Brand Man., vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 56-70, 2000.
[12] H. Vyas, “Packaging design elements and user perception: a context in fashion branding and communication,” J. Apl. Pack. Res., vol.
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[13] P. Silayoi and M. Speece, “Packaging and purchase decisions: an exploratory study on the impact of involvement level and time
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formulation using consumers’ input?,” J. Food Qual.Pref., vol. 19, pp. 719–726, 2008.
[15] T. Sebastian, P.G. Yammiyavar, and S. Jones, “Modeling design strategies for package graphics: A study of hair care products among
young Indian users,” Proceedings of ICORD 2017-Research into Design for Communities, vol. 2, pp. 727-738, 2017.
[16] T. Sebastian, P.G. Yammiyavar, and S. Jones, “Domestic and global designs in hair care: A study of aesthetic preferences of Indian
user,” Proceedings of ICORD 2017-Research into Design for Communities, vol. 2, pp. 799-810, 2017.

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