The Hero brand archetype: meaning, examples and names

The Hero is the brand that helps people rise to a challenge. It is brave and determined, and it earns trust by holding up when it counts. Nike, FedEx and Duracell all play it.

It is one of the 12 brand archetypes, the personalities a brand can have if it were a person.

What Hero customers need

To prove themselves, win and become stronger. A Hero customer has something hard in front of them, a race, a deadline, a tough job, and wants the thing that helps them get through it.

What they fear is the opposite: weakness, and letting people down. The kit that fails at mile twenty, the parcel that doesn’t arrive, the battery that dies at the wrong moment. So a Hero brand makes a promise about performance and keeps it.

Brands that play the Hero

• Nike is named after the Greek goddess of victory, and has told people to “Just Do It” since 1988.
• FedEx made its name with a slogan from 1978: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”
• Duracell introduced its bunny in a 1973 ad: drumming toy rabbits slow down and stop until only the one with a Duracell battery is still drumming.

None of them is the Hero because of what they sell. Shoes, deliveries and batteries are very different products. They share a promise: you won’t fail.

Watch the Hero in action

Released in September 2018 for the 30th anniversary of “Just Do It”, the two-minute film is narrated by the former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. It moves between famous athletes, among them Serena Williams and LeBron James, and less famous ones, such as Megan Blunk, a wheelchair basketball player who won gold in Rio in 2016, and Isaiah Bird, a young wrestler born without legs. It won the Emmy for Outstanding Commercial in 2019. Notice what the Hero does here. Every story is someone taking on something hard, and the brand stands behind them rather than in front.

When the Hero fits, and when it doesn’t

When it fits: your brand helps people push harder and win: sport, fitness, performance gear, logistics, tools for tough jobs, anything where results are measured. If your customers ask “will it hold up?” or “will it get me there?”, the Hero is a natural fit.

When it fights the customer: a product people buy for comfort, rest or fun. A Hero bedding brand turns sleep into a contest. A Hero meditation app sounds like a drill sergeant. And the Hero can tip into arrogance: when the brand casts itself as the hero instead of the customer, people stop listening.

How the Hero sounds

Direct, energetic and sure. The Hero speaks in short sentences, often in the imperative, and doesn’t hedge.

The words it reaches for come from the world of effort, not from your category: summit, ridge, flint, anvil, stride, crest, torch, rope, spike, forge, sprint. Its images are the mountain top, the starting line, the forge, the last mile.

Its names tend to sound short and hard: stops like k, t and p, one or two syllables, the weight on the first beat.

What the Hero does to a name

A Hero name sounds like it is already moving.

• Kinds that suit it: short real words with an edge, evocative names from climbing, sport or craft, and roots from myth used with care. Nike shows how a name from myth can carry the idea without saying it. See the six kinds of startup names for each kind’s traps.
• The trap: the archetype’s own clichés. Hero, Titan, Champion, Victory, Warrior, Spartan, Apex and Quest are on thousands of companies, and they boast about strength instead of lending it. Lightning bolts and shields, too.
• A test: would this name sound right shouted at someone on the last mile? If it sounds like the brand praising itself rather than pushing the customer, it isn’t the Hero.

Good partners for the Hero

Most brands play one personality strongly and borrow from one or two others. The Hero pairs well with:

• The Explorer, for outdoor and adventure brands: going further, not only faster.
• The Ruler, for professional gear and tools that lead their category on performance.
• The Caregiver, for rescue, safety and protection: the hero who looks after people.

A Hero with a Jester can work (a sport brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously), but it needs care: the joke can’t make light of the effort.

The Hero in deepmarks

In the deepmarks brief, two answers point to the Hero:

• “If your brand were a person, what would they be like?” Brave
• “What should your customers feel when they use your brand?” Empowered

deepmarks reads the rest of your brief too, then suggests three personalities, in order, and says why in your own words. If the Hero isn’t among them and you want it, click Change next to the personality on your names, then Read & watch on The Hero, and Use as Primary. The first personality colours most names; the second and third add range.

The names written as a Hero are shown in Bebas Neue, tall, condensed capitals, over a picture of a mountain summit.

The Hero in short

• Promise: you won’t fail.
• Customers need: to prove themselves, win and become stronger.
• Sounds: short, hard, direct.
• Avoid: Hero, Titan, Champion, Apex, and lightning bolts.
• Pairs with: the Explorer, the Ruler, the Caregiver.