Archetype 2: The Hero
The second archetype in the mythology of products is The Hero. Hero products stand for something. You buy a hero because you buy in to its philosophy.
Here are some Hero products and services:
- Prius
- iBook (the original tangerine one)
- BMW
- Hummer
- Ben & Jerry’s
- Working Assets Long Distance
- L. L. Bean
- Target
- Whole Foods
- Columbia Sportswear
A Hero doesn’t even have to perform all that well; buying the Hero makes a statement to you and to others. An article in the New York Times last week about the Prius, my favorite Hero example reported that, according to a recent study, more than half the people buying a new Prius do so because of the statement it makes. The Prius is not the fanciest car, or highest performance car. But it has a story.
The challenge with a Hero is making sure the message is something people actually want to hear. The Honda Insight is a hybrid gas/electric car introduced years ago, because “going green” was popular. Although I see one on the street occasionally here in Cambridge, they didn’t last long on the market. According to the Wikipedia article on the Insight, Honda sold all of 13,000 of them in six years. Toyota has sold over a million hybrids, with the Prius making up the bulk, in about the same span of time. But at the right time.
Interestingly, when Toyota put their hybrid motor technology into other cars like the Camry and Highlander, they chose to badge those cars with a small “Toyota Synergy Drive” label. It’s a missed opportunity, because Prius is the hero of the story; those other cars should say “Prius Inside.” Then they’d be Heroes too.
