Spotlight on Brand Archetypes: The Magician
A smiling woman holds a string of lights in her hands
I was at a rooftop party one glorious summer afternoon when a young entrepreneur came over to strike up a conversation with me. My newfound friend wasted no time in expressing his enthusiasm for a certain coach who happens to be one of the most well-known Magician brand archetypes of our time. “I’ve been working with Tony for a while,” he said eagerly, “and I’m flying out for another event tomorrow so I can help the team out. Are you familiar with his work?” He didn’t even have to say Tony’s last name - I had already figured out that he was a mega-fan of transformational speaker Tony Robbins.
Tony is the ultimate example of the Magician archetype. As a motivational speaker and coach, he helps others transform their dreams into reality. People follow him around like he’s Taylor Swift (or, if you’re old enough, like a member of the Grateful Dead) and become evangelists for his brand. That’s what Magicians tend to inspire in others. How? Well, they have tons of charisma, want to share their way of being with the world, and are often quite mysterious in how they achieve their outcomes.
Many purpose-driven people we’ve encountered, especially coaches and certain types of idealistic entrepreneurs, want to be magicians. But when it comes to messaging, this can be one of the trickier archetypes to harness - take the message too far, and you can come across like a cult leader. Developing trust with your audience and following through with your promises are key to success with this archetype.
Are You a Magician?
The Magician, also known as the Healer, Visionary or Shaman, desires to transform dreams into reality. Transformation is their primary value, and they strongly believe in helping others to transform their lives.
In our work with purpose-driven businesses, Magicians tend to be coaches and speakers who have developed a way of being in the world that they want to share with everyone. Often wowing people with their charismatic presence, they’re natural storytellers. People tend to instantly believe what they’re saying because of the energy they project.
The most positive thing about the Magician is that they don’t just believe in their magic - they truly believe that they’ve found a way to help other people create their own. If you follow their teachings, your own life will be transformed.
Magician Messaging
One magician client of ours, a health coach who survived a cancer diagnosis, frequently made mystical statements like “The caterpillar doesn’t know the color of its future wings” or “Your emotions are real, but they might not be the truth” - often causing people to pause and say “Wow, that’s really profound, I never thought about that before.” Often, people feel inspired by Magicians, because they use language that projects imagination, transformation, possibility, and healing. They are great at making people believe.
Well-known Magician brands, such as Disney or Polaroid, often provide experiences or products that transform people’s lives. Clear examples of Magician language in their taglines include Disney’s “Where dreams come true,” Polaroid’s “Live for the moment,” and Red Bull’s “Red Bull gives you wings.” For what it’s worth - our own Magician-y tagline is “Find the magic in your message.”
But for some, this kind of copy can be what I call “airy-fairy” - not down-to-earth enough for people with a more practical, concrete world view. Our increasingly cynical world creates significant challenges when harnessing the Magician archetype.
Challenges of the Magician Archetype
We once had a law firm client who took our archetype quiz and got The Magician as one of their results. After significant exploration with the team working on the rebrand, it turned out that this quiz result represented the personality of the new managing partner of the firm, but not the firm’s overall brand. Their law firm’s founder was more of a down-to-earth, next-door neighbor type of guy, and their clients were used to his more practical approach.
It has been our experience that the Magician archetype can work really well for a coach, an artist or an entrepreneur. But for some service-based industries who identify with the Magician, such as law or accounting firms, it can be a good strategy to pair the Magician with a grounding archetype like the Sage or the Citizen, or consider tapping into the rich and expansive visual power of the Magician instead of using it in copy.
Charlie Birch, Creative Director of Humaniz Collective and frequent co-collaborator, says that “there has to be a trust that happens with the Magician - at the end there’s going to be this ta-da, but you might not know exactly how we got there.”
Magician Visuals
Charlie, who specializes in helping clients’ archetypes come to life visually, believes that “part of the way you can establish trust with the Magician is to stay on the really high end of visual quality and away from anything that could lean tacky.” She mentions that Magicians frequently use gemstone colors like emerald green and deep purple, a lot of light and “anything that implies expansion.” The quality of execution is paramount in order for people to trust your brand.
Since the Magician often taps into the natural world, the elements of the universe such as the sun, moon and stars may be a part of the visuals. For a shared client that Charlie and I worked on together, we ended up emphasizing Magician visuals very heavily, including elements of earth, air, fire and water.
Magician Vs. Creator
A lot of our clients get both the Magician and the Creator in their quiz results. But Creators tend to be more collaborative than Magicians. They offer their clients the tools to do the work themselves, versus having a “way” that people must follow.
We recently worked with a client who identified as a DEI coach for many years and wanted to revamp her branding. When she took our quiz, she got The Magician as her primary result, but specifically stated that she did not want to be perceived as the all-knowing guru to her clients. In the new iteration of her brand, she ended up emphasizing the Creator, as she offers her clients a variety of tools to choose from rather than prescribing a single method.
No archetype is necessarily right nor wrong - but consciously choosing the ones to focus on is a key part of our process with clients.
Why Brand Archetypes?
For purpose-driven entrepreneurs and small business owners, brand archetypes can be a potent way to explore how your values intersect with those of your clients. Part of our process is digging more deeply with you to determine which archetypes and messaging will resonate with your audience.
Curious about our approach? Book a consultation call here to find out more about Reveal Your Brand.