Wired for Story
Humans are wired for stories. This means we tend to communicate and interpret information in a story framework. The most persuasive messages ride the story superhighway delivering insights and feelings to audiences. This applies to brands. A brand is a collection of meanings. For example, Apple with its “Think Different” ethos embodies creativity and rebellion from the status quo. Brands use archetypes to personify their most identifiable meanings (Merlo et al. 2023). Archetypes, according to legendary psychiatrist Carl Jung (1959), are universal patterns that adopt a social meaning. For example, the term mother embodies certain collective meanings such as nurturing and caring. Margaret Mark and Carol Pearson’s 2001 book: The Hero and the Outlaw was groundbreaking for branding and marketing because it outlined how archetypes can be used in brand stories to encourage people to like, buy, and trust brands and their products. Brand archetypes fit into the stories companies tell. Clorox has always associated itself with cleanliness and motherhood. In 2019 the brand started use the tagline: “Trusted by Moms.” Using the “mother” archetype, invoking trust to transmit a persuasive mental shortcut for consumers: “Mom trusts Clorox, so should I.”
Deficit and Empowerment Marketing
Brand stories tend to be positioned in two ways: deficit or empowerment marketing. The first way is to cast the product as the hero of the brand story. This resembles deficit marketing. Deficit marketing was the standard in the American advertising with commercials such as this advertisement for Cadillac. The premise of deficit marketing is that the consumer is lacking something in their life and the product will heroically fulfill what is missing. Years of advertising, marketing, and branding from everything from automobiles to health and beauty products has demonstrated the effectiveness of deficit marketing. “You are deficient” the story surreptitiously says. “Buy this and you will be complete.” More recent examples of deficit marketing can be observed in ads for pain relievers such as this Nurtec ODT featuring Khloé Kardashian. In this 30-second spot the mega-influencer shares her experience dealing with migraine pain and how it threatened her important relationships. Nurtec ODT is discussed as the “hero” who brings migraine relief and saves Kardashian from social isolation.
The second way brand stories are told is by casting the consumer as the hero. This refers to empowerment marketing. Although empowerment marketing is a contemporary of deficit marketing, the strategy has not been utilized as much as deficit marketing until recently. A great example of an iconic brand that uses empowerment marketing is Nike. Nike’s Why Do It? commercial highlights the consumer as the hero and Nike products as valuable weapons in the hero’s arsenal. The consumer is painted as fearless, idealistic, and unstoppable. Nike’s brand tagline “Just Do It” appears at the end of the commercial inviting consumers to imagine themselves as an intrepid athlete.
Joseph Campbell
The notion of brand stories with their heroes must be unpacked a bit more. In 1949 literature professor Joseph Campbell first published A Hero with a Thousand Faces which outlines the archetypal hero that exists across cultures and time. Through his research on the myths of diverse populations Campbell discovered that a hero – who embodies unique characteristics based on time, place, and culture – embarks on a well mapped journey of adventure. The premise is that while heroes come in all forms the path they take follows a consistent observable route (Campbell, 1973). The hero embodies the Everyman/woman archetype of their culture who cycles through what Campbell (1973) called the monomyth.
How Brands Use the “Zero with a Thousand Faces”
In an interview with Bill Moyers, Campbell (1988) declared, “the only way you can describe a human being truly is by describing his imperfections” (p. 4). This applies to our discussion of brand stories. When a brand uses deficit marketing they tap into universal social deficits. Just like Campbell’s description of the hero – the zero – or the imperfect person tends to take on identifiable imperfections because they are connected to their social roles.
Another example of deficit marketing is this 2025 Hellmann’s Mayonnaise Commercial . The ad was taken from a scene from the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally, where Meg Ryan’s character demonstrates an orgasm while sitting in a crowded deli with Billy Crystal. The ad recreated the scene with the same two actors. In the commercial version, adding Hellman’s mayonnaise to Ryan’s sandwich was the reason for her ecstasy. To put an exclamation point on it, the ad designers included a cameo by actress Sydney Sweeney who, after observing Ryan’s euphoria said to her server, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Sweeney’s presence was perhaps aimed at the younger set of viewers who would have no memory or frame of reference for the movie. Wrapped in humor, nostalgia, and sexual tension, the Hellmann’s ad delivered a message that cleverly pointed out human deficiency and insisted their product could fix it. Hellmann’s was the hero, the consumers – as typified by Ryan, Crystal…and even Sydney Sweeney were the zeros who need mayonnaise to, as Hellmann’s tagline declares, “Hit the Spot.”
Partial Reference List
Campbell, J. (1973). The hero with a thousand faces (3rd ed.). Princeton University Press.
Campbell, J., & Moyers, B. (1988). The power of myth (B. S. Flowers, Ed). Doubleday.
Jung, C. G. (1959). The archetypes and the collective unconscious, collected works (Volume 9, Part 1). Princeton University Press.
Mark, M., & Pearson, C. S. (2001). The hero and the outlaw: Building extraordinary brands through the power of archetypes. McGraw-Hill.
Merlo, O., Eisingerich, A. B., Gillingwater, R., & Cao, J. J. (2023). Exploring the changing role of brand archetypes in customer-brand relationships: Why try to be a hero when your brand can be more? Business Horizons, 66(5), 615–629. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2022.11.001