The reason why people do what they do
and how to appeal best to their needs.
Founded by Dr. G. Clotaire Rapaille,
Archetype Discoveries Worldwide has been
successfully guiding its clients’ interests in
Marketing, Brand Positioning, Advertising,
and Product Development since 1976.
Indeed, Discovering a Cultural Archetype
allows us to uncover consumers’ unspoken and
unarticulated needs and to discover the hidden
forces behind behaviors.
A cross cultural team.
ADW has offices, partners and affiliates in
Palm Beach, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro,
Hong Kong, Istanbul, Seoul, St. Petersburg
and Luxembourg.
Our goal is to discover your customers’ unarticulated
needs and to create the best tools to resonate with
their emotional unconscious.
A Proven Process
Our methodology has been used by 50 of the world’s Fortune 100 companies, many of which are recurring clients.
Dr. Rapaille and his team have a proven record of success, as witnessed by the discovery of over 25 codes for P&G, Boeing among others. Noteworthy projects include the creation of the PT Cruiser for Chrysler, and conceptualizing Boeing’s Dreamliner plane.
Get in touchWhy do organizations like Boeing, LG and Allianz explore the Archetype of artificial intelligence; P&G, the Archetype of mouthwash or Security Pacific Bank, the Archetype of a bank? Because they want to gain the competitive edge of knowing the Archetype associated with their activity.
When you know the Code, you suddenly have the key for unlocking the meaning in what people say and do.
The codes
We conduct Imprinting session that lasts three-hours, and are designed to help participants remember their first imprints of the subject being studied.
Between 12-25 respondents are recruited for each imprinting session. The profile of the participants is chosen based on the culture being studied (eg. Born and raised in mainland America for the first 15 years of their life, mother spoke American English at home etc.)
Media
Our imprinting sessions are broken down into 3 hours according to the three Brain model explained bellow.
During the first hour of the imprinting session, participants discuss their ideas and feelings about the topic. This is a wash out session, a purge, where we let participants speak their minds. However, we don’t believe what people say.
In the second hour, free association and storytelling exercises are used to learn about the unconscious Logic of Emotion, the tensions, and latent structures of the topic.
In the last hour, relaxation techniques are used to help participants remember their first imprinting experiences. This phase is individual and anonymous.
According to this theory of Paul MacLean, three distinct brains have successively developed during the course of evolution, which now reside together in the human skull. The implications of this theory for marketing, brand loyalty, product development, product design, and communication are imperative to understanding and anticipating stakeholder and consumer needs.
The Cortex represents our relationship to logic, how we view the world and how we operate in it. Science, logic, control, numbers, statistics, money, and the intellectual alibi are examples of the cortex brain priorities.
The Limbic record memories of behaviors that produced agreeable and disagreeable experiences, it is at the root of emotions in human beings. The emotional center, representing feelings, tensions and contradictions. This brain controls our logic of emotion.
Vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature and balance. We are born with our Reptilian Brain. This brain represents the center for our most hardwired instincts (reflexes, sexual impulses, fight or flight, etc.). The reptilian always wins.
When an individual has a ‘first’ experience, emotion is the energy that imprints the mental structure and the unconscious reference system. These unconscious structures hold the key to all of our decision-making processes.
The 3-hour sessions guide participants through a well-established process that takes them through different parts of the brain from the Cortex, to the Limbic to the Reptilian.
This information gathered during the sessions is subsequently analyzed, placing an emphasis on structure over content. The structure transcends the individual experiences and uncovers the Code.
The three parts of the brain have established numerous interconnections through which they influence one another.
In order to appeal to the consumer in every possible, way, all communication in theory should have a reptilian, limbic and cortex aspect.
At the subconscious level however, individuals are guided by their most basic instincts. In order to tap into this brain, we must discover the reptilian ”hot button”, the trigger that activates an individual’s most basic relationship with the object, or concept we are trying to communicate about.
Conscious Mind
What people say,
what can be recalled
Personal Unconscious
Individual wants,
based on individual psychology
Cultural Unconscious
Cultural forces and archetypes,
based on our peers
Collective Unconscious
Biological needs,
based on biology
DNA
At the root if it all lies our DNA, the genetic program for our development and survival.
The broad base of the pyramid is occupied by what Jung described as the Collective Unconscious.
This is based on the premise that biology pre-organize human life according to Universal Archetypes
(these common structures, which we have termed Universal Schemes relate to our basic needs:
survival, reproduction, nourishment etc.).
Universal archetypes only change with evolution, and can last millions of years.
The Cultural Unconscious occupies the next level of the Pyramid. This based on the premise that cultural forces structure human behavior according to Cultural Archetypes. Cultural Archetypes should be thought of as a survival toolkit inherited at birth, which is specific to a time period and a geographical area. Cultural archetypes are passed down from one generation to another. The next level of the pyramid represents what Freud first defined as the Personal Unconscious. This is based on the premise that each individual has a unique script to deal with his or her unconscious wants.
Accessible through psychoanalysis, the individual unconscious lasts the length of a person’s life. The superior portion of the pyramid represents the Conscious Mind, which is based on what individuals can recall. What people are able to recall influences what they say and shapes their opinions. Opinions can be influenced and changed in the blink of an eye, whenever new information is presented.
