Verve’s Roman Stikkelorum candidly explores the shortcomings of brand archetypes and golden circles

Verve is a forward-thinking branding and digital agency based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In this opinion piece, Managing Director Roman Stikkelorum argues that while brand archetypes and the golden circle have a strategic role to play, it may not be the one you think. I found myself involved in a post-dinner chat with friends recently, which verged (as late-night discussions sometimes do), onto the topic of astrology. You’ve probably had this conversation yourself. It’s the one where everybody starts off as mocking and sceptical, then somebody (who for whatever reason knows this stuff), starts to reel off the various qualities of star signs and folks begin to lean in: “actually that is kind of uncanny”… There’s something endearing to me about how susceptible we are to this stuff. We humans like to think of ourselves as such rational creatures. And yet the attraction of simple, metaphysical explanations for otherwise baffling or complex phenomena is so strong, it seems to get us every time.