Branding 101 with Toys
When I was a kid my favorite toys were G.I.Joe and Transformers. These toys did not need to be explained or taught. They were a rich detailed world of imagination and creativity. I could pick one of these toys up and immediately dive in. My brother and I could create our own scenarios and stories to entertain ourselves for hours. Each of us would gravitate towards specific characters that we liked. Sometimes these characters were the same, but most of the time they were different. Our choices tended to follow our personalities. My brother preferred the outwardly brash characters that were at the center of the action. I preferred the secondary characters that were heroic but understated. You did not have to see a cartoon or comic book to start categorizing these characters and fitting them into certain slots like the strongest, fastest, or smartest. As the world of these toys expanded I could put new characters within certain gaps that might have been missing. For toys, these characteristics were stereotypes that enriched the story telling. The packaging and toys themselves communicated all of this.
How does this work even at a young age? Why is it so much fun and mesmerizing for kids? It is part discovery, part creativity and part making sense of the world. This process did two things for me as a kid. One, it made the characters easily understandable. Two, because I was involved in the process, I became personally connected to them through my understanding and imagination. I began to identity with the characters and anticipate how they might think or act. Later when I watched the cartoon, the storytelling matched up to my viewpoints and gave me more story to learn and explore. This all came from my need as a child to understand the world around me. These toys and characters are a language of archetypes that teaches universal ideas. When I came across similar stories, I applied these universal ideas to comprehend the new stories more quickly and completely. It allowed me to dig deeper into understanding the world. As the characters developed I started to attach more meaning to them and they became more complex.
These characters are symbols to an intricate web of ideas and concepts. When the characters interact with each other the complexity quantifies and patterns start to emerge. These patterns are similar to archetypes and symbols you can find in mythology, literature, fine art, music and other communications involving storytelling. Another communication method that works this way are brands. Brands, toy characters, music, stories, fine art are all communication devices that represent an abstract concept, idea, thought or a system of concepts, ideas and thoughts. Some are easier than others to translate. I’m sure the people that designed G.I.Joe and Transformers purposely made them outwardly simple and left room for the toys to grow with imagination and understanding. They used universal symbols with the toys in order to get the messages across easliy and therefore catch on quickly. The marketplace for toys is aggressive and demanding. New ideas like brands or stories depend on universal symbols, but they also need to be delivered in different combinations to fine tune that particular message. This is why it is important for companies to distill their brand down as far as it will go. Once the first message is delivered and understood, brands can start adding more complex ideas to build a true connection to a single individual. Brands must answer our needs for matching to universal symbols and work dynamically to differentiate internal characteristics and quality of that given product or service.