Lesson 36: How to use archetypal features in your copy—demonstrated via archetypal features
All about implementing archetypal features
Today’s lesson sounds very meta, I know, but I’m not doing it to be coy.
The best way to learn to use archetypal features is simply to decode the ones that are intrinsically practical — what I call archetypal tactics.
We’ll also distill down the features we’ve learned so far into what I call archetypal topics.
Hopefully you have a basic grasp of how archetypal features play out in music and stories. But if I were you, I’d have some trepidation about how to put them to work in copy. Is this something that can even be taught — or does it come only with innate talent, or a decade of waxing on, waxing off? Do you just have to get a “feel” for using archetypal features...or can you in fact learn simple principles for applying them, even if you’re inexperienced?
Obviously you will get better as you gain experience; and you’ll probably find it easier to use them if you’re already practiced at writing. But that applies to anything. Archetypal features aren’t special. There’s no extra skill or secret knowledge needed.
This lesson has two main objectives:
To distill all the archetypal features I’ve covered into a few simple principles you can use in your copy.
To identify additional archetypal features which constitute practical advice for applying these principles.
You will either be pleased or horrified to learn that I’m going to continue with country music in this lesson.
However, for your sanity as well as your edification, I’ll also draw in another phenomenon which I think is very important from a marketing perspective, since it teaches us so much about engagement and what Sam really cares about: viral videos.
I’m going to be quite selective in my examples, as I was with music; I’ll take what I consider the most useful videos to illustrate my point, rather than just focusing on raw popularity.
Because I first developed my ideas about archetypal features in 2012, I’ll be referencing the top viral campaigns from that year, as well as many others that topped 1 million views. This is simply because it makes no sense for me to spend hours updating this list every year. The videos may be dated now, but the principles apply regardless of the year we sample.
Finding simple principles to unify all the archetypal features we’ve covered
Or, put another way, what topics should we write about?
Or, put yet another way, what emotional reaction do we want Sam to have?
When we are thinking of topics for emails, or thinking of analogies or stories to use in our copy, what should we look for, and how can we identify the most important, interesting topics?
Last time I identified a whole bunch of features which do make good topics...but there are an awful lot of them:
Freedom & benefactors
Realism & Joe Average
Priorities, virtue & reward
Growing up, loss & restoration
Simple goods
Magic
Split personality
Discovery, upheaval & paradigm shift
Poor judgment & misplaced trust
Desperation, opposition & challenges
Fraud, deception & betrayal
Oppression & exploitation
Comeuppance & first-class jackasses
It’s a lot to remember — especially since we’re about to add a few more! But you’ll notice that last time also I started the process of grouping these features according to the kind of thing they are — e.g., benefactors and freedom seem to go together; realism is interesting because it reflects our lives, just like Joe Average characters, etc.
This is the first step toward distilling each of these things down into more basic categories. And that’s what I’m all about in pretty much everything really — what are the fundamental categories, principles, patterns etc., that we can use as building blocks for good marketing?
A few more archetypal features to fill up the pool
Before we look for principles, we need to make sure we’ve gotten at least the 20% of archetypal features that constitute 80% of what gets Sam interested. We want a reasonably comprehensive list in order to accurately distill them down. So let’s round out our list by looking to viral videos...
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Copywriting Night School to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.