At Alexander Dunlop, we believe that exploring and understanding myths and their expression in the world is key to uncovering a unique and lasting brand identity. All of our services use a journey and discovery approach. Collaborative exploration, mutual learning and generating insight are central to how we operate.
Uncovering the Archetype Myth and Ritual at the core of the Brand
Checking out how these Brand “Languages” resonate with consumers
The most iconic brands all have a distinct personality and story to tell. They create worlds that people want to immerse themselves in. Once brand meaning is established, we use this core to begin "world making".
Every one of the world's cultures can be understood through its foundational stories, myths, films, history. We call this "cultural mythographics". We have collected the mythographics for 80% of the world’s cultures. We use this knowledge to conduct cultural panel research in order to further explore and optimize your brand’s meaning and identity.
We facilitate the creation of long-term, cross-channel content strategies and narrative that will deliver a consistent and engaging brand experience to your customers. We combine our background in customer experience driven by brand to bring this to life.
Brand Identity – Understanding who and why your brand is
"Behind each great Brand is an archetype embedded in a story wrapped in a myth"
We are in an era of marketing where what the product or service does is less important than what it means to people. Iconic brands acquire cultural meaning through having a distinct personality. They have a story to tell, a myth – ultimately they have the ability to create a world that people want to immerse themselves in. We help you create that world.
We work with Brand, Marketing and Research teams in a journey of discovery to uncover the archetypes and stories that will build your Brand. We create the foundation for exploring and identifying all the aspects of building a coherent meaning system.
The journey delivers a secure rock on which the brand's meaning system is based. It is more reliable than a definition based on concepts, words, and a set of adjectives – and one that will be transferable to your target markets.
Start your journey hereCultural Research and Communication Optimisation
Success for global marketers today lies in their ability to understand the cultures of the world. People bring their own cultural stories to a brand story. In order to connect with consumers, you will need to know what those stories are.
Our unique approach puts panel members who grew up in a culture but are now living outside that culture into a room to get an Outside In perspective of the Brand’s world. We find we get better insights as people that are totally immersed in a situation often don’t see what is obvious.
“The one thing a fish knows nothing about is water” – Marshall McLuhan.
We then put a number of cultures in the room at the same time. It is in meeting another culture that you are forced to make your own cultural assumptions, values and beliefs explicit.
To further validate the insight derived from these sessions, we conduct tailored quantitative studies with those living in the culture.
Depth, speed and practical guidance is the outcome of these studies. By engaging in cultural clustering, we ensure that you are optimising your marketing investments. As one of our revered clients used say, "If you are 1% wrong in emotion-based communication, you are 100% wrong". We will give you an assessment of what the right channel mix is for your customers and give feedback and recommendations on your communication narrative and how it impacts the customers core values and senses.
Match Brand Stories and Personal "My" Stories
"A person’s identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor important though this is – in there action of others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going" - Giddens
Consistency across channels, time and cultures is a huge challenge when creating great campaigns, great "briefing material" becomes vital.
The key task is to align Brand Stories with "My Story" and the key challenge is how to do this at the right time and in the right context. This is the essence of the service, where Story Meets Strategy.
We facilitate the creation of your marketing strategy by using your Brand narrative to fuel activities to contribute in creating a consistent message (or narrative) across all relevant channels. We guide you on this journey by empathising with the customer, mapping life stages, creating story boards and creating key customer journeys.
The identification of the unifying glue that will connect your Brand Story with your Customers across every channel. By empathising and role playing, you will start to understand how your Brand Story is perceived through the eyes of your customers and really understand their needs and dreams. This approach will enable you to deliver the best possible experiences to your customers, through the channels they interact in.
Start Your JourneyGaining cultural expertise in Story/Myth to deliver real results globally
Mastering the three wisdoms of global marketing: the cognitive, the effective and the cultural
While the aim of the workshop is to develop skills in cultural analysis, we focus on aspects of the brand all the way through. This gives very tangible results to the brand team in the form of insight, creative analysis, cultural feedback etc.
The focus of the workshop can be on the overall brand meaning in a global context, a particular campaign in a global context, or a relevant theme in a global context (i.e. motherhood).
