THE INNOCENT
Free to be you and me
The Innocent seeks happiness, harmony, and simplicity among a complex world. They are optimists who are inspired by the idea of a Utopia in which they are free of corruption and animosity. They try to see the best in everything, but which can also mean that they have a tendency to disregard reality.
This archetype is also called the Angel, Child, Dreamer, Idealist, Muse, Mystic, Naive, Optimist, Pollyanna, Puer or Puella, Purist, Romantic, Saint, Traditionalist, or Utopian.
The 12 Brand Archetypes were developed and articulated in "The Hero and The Outlaw" by Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson
INNOCENT MARKETING OPPORTUNITY
The Innocent archetype provides a good identity for brands that:
Provide a relatively simple answer to an identifiable problem
Are associated with goodness, morality, simplicity, nostalgia, or childhood
Have functions associated with cleanliness, health, or virtue—and that are infinitely replicable
Are priced moderate to low
Are produced by a company with straight-arrow core values
Desire to differentiate from a product with a tarnished image
MARKETING APPROACH | Portraying a sense of nostalgia allowing them to connect with others and be characterized as trustworthy and reliable
TONE | Genuine, Honest, Hopeful, Joyful, Loving, Nostalgic, Optimistic, Peaceful, Reliable, Safe, Simple, Trustworthy, Unpretentious, Virtuous, and Wholesome
VALUE PROPOSITION | Helps people retain or renew faith
CUSTOMER FEAR | Entrapment, selling out, emptiness
INNOCENT MINDSET & TRAITS
GOAL | To live in a paradise full of happiness, optimism, and simplicity
STRATEGY | To lead by example by always trying to do what is right
MOTIVATION | Independence & Fulfillment
CALL | A desire for purity, goodness, and simplicity
CORE DESIRE | To experience paradise
GIFT | Faith and optimism
CHAMPIONS | Faith, Fulfillment, Hope, Optimism, Purity, Safety, Simplicity, Trust, and Virtue
SUPER POWERS | Offering simple solutions to complex problems by having a uniquely optimistic outlook on life and a desire to find the good in everything and everyone.
SHADOW | Denial, repression
TRAP | A childlike personality may be misinterpreted as naïve, dependent, and mundane; whereas their optimism may be viewed as ignorance seeing how it’s not always the most realistic perspective
FEARS | Doing something wrong and being punished or abandoned by others for doing so
TURN-OFFS | Complexity, Deceit, Guilt, Pessimism, and Stress
LEVELS OF THE INNOCENT
LEVEL 1 Childlike simplicity, naive, dependent, obedient, trusting, idyllic
LEVEL 2 Renewal, positive, reinventing, reframing, cleansing, reentering the Promise Land
LEVEL 3 An almost mystical sense of oneness, whereby Innocence comes from values and integrity, not outer experience; being, not doing
SIMILAR BRAND ARCHETYPES
SOURCES
Mark, Margaret, Pearson, Carol, (2001). The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes Hardcover - (Amazon Affiliate Link) pages 13, 18, 53-55, 70
The authors developed the 12 Brand Archetypes as a tool for marketing in 1995 and explained their methodology and ideas in their seminal book. Some of the content on this page are ideas cited directly to maintain correctness and some have been paraphrased where possible.