This is especially true for women whose attention is often tugged in a million different directions and who don’t feel adequately reflected in the branding they’re presented with.
Fortunately, Alchemy has created a specialised market research tool that cuts through the bluster, allowing your brand to make an impactful first impression.
For over a decade, we’ve studied women to discover what really makes them tick and to understand them in a way that goes beyond personality or tired female stereotypes.
Our research has led to the development of an innovative framework of feminine archetypes, The Women We Are, a market research tool that can identify the archetypal profile of your female customers with proven statistical accuracy — making engaging and connecting with them, simpler and more productive.
The Women We Are can confidently reveal women’s key drives, how they approach the world and their differentiating qualities, to benefit your brand now.
The framework of feminine archetypes, The Women We Are, identifies the archetypal profile of your female customers with statistical confidence to reveal who your customers really are and what makes them tick, so that you can tailor your messaging across your whole client base. It can also be used as an added layer to any qualitative research topic giving you deeper and richer insight than ever before.
Excellent question!
Feminine archetypes represent the typical patterns of feminine life and how women express themselves. Throughout history, these patterns have been reflected back to us as characters in myths, fairy tales, legends, films and now even podcasts. Think Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider films, who tells the timeless tale of heroism in the female voice. Or, the many seductress roles that film actress, Marilyn Monroe, played. They tell a story that is intuitively familiar and recognisable because they speak a truth about human life and who we are as people – even down to our choice of consumer goods and brands!
It’s this trait, and the fact that we instinctively understand archetypes, that makes them such a valuable and powerful marketing tool.
There are four fundamental feminine archetypes — templates that are shaped by a woman’s personality, early experiences and environment. Women usually have a primary type, but may adopt others as they mature and experience life. Alchemy’s research shows that most Australian women live through a combination of two or three archetypes. In over 90% of cases, women have a clearly defined primary type.
OK, but why do we call these archetypes Hetaira, Amazon, Medial Woman and Mother?
We use the feminine archetypes framework identified by psychoanalyst, Toni Wolff, and validated by us. In our own research, we found that the names she assigned to each archetype truly capture their essence making them the most fitting terms to use. We honour her terminology.
Take a look at the videos below to get a feel for the underlying essence and meaning of each archetype.
Cultivates social networks and intimate relationships easily. She is attentive, engaging, fun, sensual and flirtatious. She’s ruled by the heart and lets others into her life, readily.
Achieves her goals independently and by doing things in the world. She’s a self-starter, courageous and rational. She takes charge, sets goals and works hard to achieve them.
Creates, develops, sustains and releases life. She’s family orientated, helpful and centred on the home. She nurtures and cares for those around her, is sympathetic, consoling and often sentimental.
Seeks meaning and understanding of the world and of her experiences. She’s sensitive, empathic, highly creative and has heightened intuition. She reflects deeply, is imaginative and has deep inner wisdom.
Want to know how Alchemy can identify the archetypal profiles of your key target audience to help your brand build stronger customer connections?
Barastoc produces locally sourced premium horse feed underpinned by sound nutritional science and research.
The brand was losing volume and value share and was in danger of losing its mainstream status. Barastoc wanted to better understand horsewomen and how they could engage and connect with the target audience to help bring them back to the brand.
Ethnographic one-on-one interviews with 15 horsewomen. We used storytelling, image collection and projective techniques to delve into the human-horse relationship and the drives and motivations of horsewomen. We revealed the core archetypal character of horsewomen as Amazon types, i.e. strong, determined, courageous and achievement oriented. We got to understand the heart of horsewomen as people, as horse-feed owners, and critically, the types of messages and communication style that they most responded to.
As a result of this study, Barastoc overhauled its brand manifesto. The brand story, purpose and tone of voice was changed to better reflect the core nature and needs of their target audience. The brand slogan, website and social media messaging and targeting were also revised to reflect the new manifesto
"We used to talk to them as if we were the authority on all things horse. Now we share information and news with them. They are very resourceful, so we just point them in the right direction."
"We were delivering a better message about our products and people were then buying the slightly better products that we make more margin from. It was a huge increase.”
