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Why transpersonal ?
It’s well-known that the strength of a brand is given by the number and the
strength of the brand’s associations. In other words, the more people share
these associations and, at the same time, the more firmly the associations
are anchored in their minds, the more powerful the brand will become. And,
strictly psychologically speaking, the most widely used features – which are
universal by definition – are the ones that appeared during man’s
philogenetic development. Obviously, we are speaking mainly about archetypes
and the contents of the collective subconscious. Alongside these, we could
also name any other mental elements which can be associated with mankind’s
universal myths, with general anthropological structures, with human ideals
and values, with needs and expectations from the top of Maslow‘s Pyramid,
and, generally speaking, with acts, actions, behaviors, feelings etc. which
one way or another are active or latent in the psyche of all or most human
beings.
The structure and origins of all these contents and mental elements could be
largely similar to the structure and origins of archetypes. Still, I’d
rather not use the generic word archetype because I’m convinced many of the
above mentioned elements, though commonly taken for archetypes, have not
reached the highest degree of human universality and haven’t found a place
in the collective subconscious yet. For all these elements and mental
contents which allow ample associations I prefer the word ‘transpersonal’.
Activating all these associations at the level of individual consciousness
allows a psychosocial connection, a transpersonal relation of all the ones
subjected to this ‘activation’. In the case of brand, these activations are
done through its communications and behaviors towards the public, through
all its advertising and PR acts which make up its marketing strategy.
The term ‘transpersonal’ is known mainly from the phrase “transpersonal
psychology” which is seen as an extension of the psychological research on
the spiritual level of existence, emphasizing the study of ‘states’ and
processes in which people experience profound connections with the depths of
their own selves, with essential aspects of the surrounding universe. In the
case of branding, the word transpersonal doesn’t have the same meaning as
the one in transpersonal psychology. Obviously, the meaning of ‘spiritual’
is maintained, but I mostly refer to the states and processes through which
people establish relationships which are determined by the activations
produced by the brands whose ‘consumers’ they are. And, at the same time,
these relationships are accompanied by the feeling (sometimes also the
awareness) of that respective brand’s origins. The upper level of a brand’s
existence appears the moment its consumers become responsible towards the
existence and the development of that brand, displaying appropriate feelings
and behaviors, sometimes even against logic and reason.
Lucian
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