COVER STORY

April 2001 Admap 29© World Advertising Research Center 2001

THE TRICKSTER is one of theworld’s great archetypes, present inart, religion, politics, entertainment

and great advertising. Great advertisingemploys the Trickster to entice, persuadeand seduce. We are all, in spite of ourrational defences, subject to the Trickster.It goes beyond the purely rational, to con-nect with our deeper emotional, socialand cultural selves. Here we review theTrickster – ‘Delight Maker’ or ‘DivineJoker’ – and its special relevance to mod-ern advertising. And, not least, howmarket research can grasp it.

Trickster originsThe Trickster archetype is that part ofourselves that secretly desires the fantas-tic, exaggeration, seduction and escapefrom the mundanities of life. It is olderand more primitive than modern logic,order and rationality, hovering on theborders of the personal and collectiveunconscious. In neuro-physical terms, itis buried deep in the brain’s limbic sys-tem where primitive feelings lie, incontrast to the rational workings of thecerebral cortex.

The Trickster is the master of flux, perpetuating old illusions and creating new ones. It breaks taboos,stretches the mind and challenges thelimits of belief.The Trickster representsthe oppositions and contradictions oflife; how we deceive ourselves that we are rational when we are not. Its mythand magic are integral to humanbehviour.

The role of the Trickster is well documented in psychological andanthropological literature. Jung identifiedthe Trickster – or ‘Divine Joker’ – as hisfourth archetype along with Mother,Rebirth and Spirit.Trickster figures existin all cultures as shaman, sorcerer,

magician, fool, clown, joker, jester,harlequin and enchanter. It occurs in allmythologies. In Greece and Rome,Hermes/Mercury, god of commerce,profit and persuasion; in Hebraic culture, Jacob; in Norse myths, Loki,co-creator of the world; among theAshanti of Ghana, Anansi, the spider-trickster; in Japan, Susano, who plungedthe world into darkness by mistake; inPolynesia, Maui, who captured the sun to slow it down; among the Indians of North America, ‘Wakdjunka’– ‘the tricky one’.

All these myths have one thing incommon: they teach what is outside thebounds of consciousness which researchcan often miss.The Trickster passes mes-sages from our psychic selves, guidingus, just as with modern advertising. Itappears particularly at moments of tran-sition in the interplay between reality andfantasy, during change and life-stagecrises.We see it at work when consumers

switch brands, buy on impulse andchange routines in the supermarket.During this intermediate state, the mindis open, creative and susceptible.

The prince of Tricksters is Hermes,son of Zeus. As god of commerce andpersuasion, he was the messenger of thegods. He received a magic wand, the‘caduceus’, that could inspire anddumbfound whomever it touched. AsHomer wrote of Hermes: ‘He mazes theeyes of those mortals he would maze, orwakes again the sleepers’ – not a far cryfrom great advertising. Symbolised bywings on feet and helmet, he became thegod of movement. Not surprisingly,Hermes is the uncrowned prince ofmodern advertising.

The Trickster archetype is at oncemoral and immoral, good and evil,earthly and divine,outrageous and subtle,mischievous and primitive, infantile butwise, deceptive but wondrous, self-cen-tred yet insightful. It combines these conflicting impulses in ourselves and our relationships with brands. This ubiquity accounts for its fascination andits power.

Trickster nowIn the modern world, the Trickster ispresent in virtually every aspect ofhuman activity. It appears in film, video,cartoons, advertising – all forms of communication, including researchinterviews. The filmic form and visual–verbal devices are important toolsof the Trickster, now that the visualimage is such a dominant mode of communication and persuasion. A classic is ‘Batman’, where the Trickster isboth the Batman and the Joker. BruceWayne, innocent and bemused, is transformed into a super-hero, the positive Trickster, a black ‘bat’ with ➳

The Trickster: myth and magic in great ads

Peter Cooper and Simon Patterson, CRAM International, demonstratethat there is a potent archetype lurking in much great advertising

COVER STORY

amazing powers, charged with repellingthe forces of evil. Jack Nicholson, thewhite-faced, green-haired Joker, is theevil side of the Trickster.

Other characters play important partsin Trickster stories, like Batman’s‘guardian angel’ (Alfred, the butler), afair damsel (Vicki Vale), the forces ofgood (the Mayor and the Police Commissioner), and a chorus of evil(the Joker’s henchmen).

Many public figures are ‘tricksterish’:● In sport, Eric Cantona, Maradona,David Beckham, Muhammad Ali● In music, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Marilyn Manson.● In entertainment, Charlie Chaplin,Mr Bean,Ali G, Chris Evans.

Theatre and film breed new Tricksterexpressions, as do luxury, fashion andthe arts. Illusions are commonplace,distorting, confusing and pleasing to thesenses. In science, too, the Trickster is atwork. Placebos are the Tricksters ofmedicine, creating effects well beyondpharmaceutically active ingredients.

Politics abounds with Tricksters,supported by their shamans or ‘spindoctors’. George W Bush, Tony Blairand William Hague all have tricksterishqualities compacted into their publicimage. ‘Tricksterishness’ is part of polit-ical charisma – we know they do notquite mean what they say, but theyengage us none the less.

The difference between the Trickster’srole in the past and now is that the Trickster was more overt, a way ofunderstanding and learning about theworld.Today, the Trickster helps us copewith the pace of modern, digital, dehu-manised life. It makes contact with ourreal selves. It makes life ‘fun’. Sincebrands and advertising are the secularequivalent of religion, we need the Trickster to make sense of the complex,time-driven world.

The Trickster creates heroes and thencauses their downfall. Powerful tales –Hercules, Odysseus, King Arthur, ZiggyStardust – describe the hero’s rise and fall.

● Heroes are often born from humbleorigins, show early signs of superhumanpowers, rise rapidly to prominence andstruggle triumphantly against evil.● The hero invariably has a ‘guardian’ –the Trickster – who protects, guides andhelps him perform tasks that cannot bedone unaided – Merlin for Arthur,Alfredfor Batman, ‘Q’ for James Bond.● With all this success, heroes becomeover-confident and fall from grace,betrayed by hubris and the people theycame to save.

This parallels the life cycles of brandsand advertising.● They often come from humble origins, show early promise and triumphover competition, often with the aid of aTrickster ingredient or ‘USP’.● They too over-reach themselves andare betrayed – frequently by their ownmanagement, then by consumers.

Marketing history is littered withbrands that were once hero Tricksters oftheir time such as Rinso, Fry’s chocolateand Austin cars. Each market has its own

graveyard of fallen famous brands andthe future will see more.

Trickster advertisingWe have noted the presence of the Trick-ster in many advertising studies. TheTrickster often takes on an animal form,as in ancient cultures. Our continued fascination with the half-animal, half-human is clear in Disney characters,cartoons, and a multitude of anthropo-morphic Tricksters in advertising.Theserange from past advertising, like PGTips’ chimps and Esso’s tiger, throughto more modern examples like Bud-weiser frogs, Peperami, Boddington’scow, Motorola’s tortoise.The Tricksterexploits the primitive power of animalswithin us.This was a favourite device ofstorytelling in native American cultures,where the Trickster was portrayed ascoyote or raven, performing amazingand extraordinary sexual feats. Else-where it is monkey, hare, fox, spider, bat,chameleon, fish, bird or dragon, againwith fantastical appearances and magical properties, or a human with animal mask or clothes. Physiognomyand phrenology are critical to the Trick-ster – the brand’s inner character isexpressed through outward appearances.

The Trickster regularly appears in

exaggerated human form, like Levi’s FlatEric, PlayStation’s Alien, the Metz ‘Judder’, or super-human figures likePirelli’s Carl Lewis.The brand takes ontheir playful or serious image, suspendingdisbelief. Nowadays, too, we see theTrickster bringing machines alive, as inThomas the Tank Engine and Bob theBuilder.

Modern advertising incorporates theTrickster’s oppositions or conflicts. Inthe ‘good’ role, the Trickster brand issaviour and hero, as in household and

Above: Hermes, ‘uncrowned prince ofadvertising’ (Giambologna, 16th century)

‘The Trickster createsheroes and then causes

their downfall’

April 2001 Admap 31© World Advertising Research Center 2001

personal care, or OTC medicines. In the‘bad’ role, it represents the enemies –dirt, sickness or sheer boredom. TheTrickster recognises the complexitiesand dualities of modern life: we are neither good nor bad, but both at thesame time, composites of happy andsad, hero and rogue. This increases credibility and empathy, e.g. Kronen-bourg ‘menage à trois’, the Mars ‘Man’whose partner leaves him, and exampleslike those in Oxo and Bisto advertising.

The Trickster makes great use of irony.In medieval times, the Fool’s Popesatirised papal pomp at the Ass’s Festival.The congregation brayed like asses andthe more ridiculous the noise the morethis ‘pleasurable blasphemy’ was celebrated.Humour and irony permeatedthe Trickster’s antics.The same is true inthe modern world, as we satirise,caricature, and lampoon our leaders andinstitutions. Modern advertising is rife with satire and irony, including satiredirected at itself and the brand beingadvertised, for instance Tango, and the famous parody by Carling BlackLabel of Levi’s ‘Laundrette’. Instead ofclaiming to be absolute authorities on

their product area, successful Tricksterbrands are almost ‘therapeutic’, recog-nising popular hopes and fears. Focusgroups themselves have been satirised, asin Rover’s ‘rejected by focus groups’ ad,and in New Labour politics.

The Trickster manipulates our mindsin many ways, for example, by bringingelements into the foreground, marking,emphasising, stressing and contrasting,and creating new visual and linguisticstructures. It is also accomplished at‘backgrounding’ – making the back-ground to pictures seem to disappearfrom attention.Yet we know backgroundor context play crucial parts in subliminalcommunication, working below attention thresholds.The set, props andmusic are all critical to creating mood,style and involvement. These are the‘silent’Trickster persuaders.

The Trickster has always been masterof illusion. Modern film techniques, popvideos and music change cause andeffect, and create new concepts of spaceand time. The modern Trickster usesadvanced techniques of illusion (e.g.Peugeot 406 where we ‘see’ the driver’semotions and memories, Stephen

Hawking ‘Specsavers’,Volvo ‘Babies’),just as Hermes’ caduceus ‘mazes theeyes’ and ‘wakes again the sleepers’.

Degrees of TricksterismBrands and ads vary in their degree of‘Tricksterishness’. Some ads offer littlebeyond overt information.There is littleof the Trickster in this – maybe a touchof exaggeration. At the other extreme,the Trickster can make advertisingobscure and unrecognisable to most.Anexample a few years ago was RutgerHauer in ‘It’s not easy being a dolphin’ –Guinness commercials that left mostconsumers bewildered and frustrated,but meant a lot to ‘insiders’. Some popvideo forms have the same effect.Whatis important is that their consumersstruggle to understand because theyenjoy the challenge, eg Bowie and PeterGabriel, or Pot Noodle’s ‘Ace ofSpades’. Between the extremes theTrickster works at shallow or deep levels,the former more transparent and play-ful, the latter more demanding, andmore effective as a result.

The Trickster also exploits differentmedia, as outlined below.● Cinema – there is a detached-from-reality experience in the cinema for theTrickster to appear on screen and fromwithin ourselves, playing in the darkness.● TV – the TV is a ‘companion in theliving room’, enabling the Trickster toenter our lives, sometimes by stealth asdefences lower, sometimes throughsheer entertainment. It is at the transitionbetween programmes, and betweenwork and leisure.● Posters – the Trickster is strikingly present, to attract attention through verbal and visual tricks.● Magazines – mental involvementthrough reading allows the Trickster toemerge through the pages of ads, usingthe principles of eye movement and thehalo effects of editorial.● Internet – here the Trickster is stillembryonic, but has already shown hispower in dot.coms and ‘dot.gones’.Wemay expect more Tricksters online.

CreativityThe Trickster can be discerned in adagencies. Like shamans, creatives engagein mysterious rituals. Their thoughtsemerge from dark recesses, only ➳

Above: The Trickster has always been a master of illusion (painting by Carlo Maria Mariani, IlMano Ubbidisce all’ Intelletto, 1987)

COVER STORY

32 Admap April 2001© World Advertising Research Center 2001

recognised when they appear. Theyrespond strongly to competition, as doesthe Trickster. Deadlines force out ideas.They have an intense conviction they are right and need an audience, chieflytheir own kind, to praise and award.They resist control and research, for fearit will strangle their creations.

Creatives have a priestly quality aboutthem, and once fed with research andmarketing objectives, emerge with cre-ative executions.Their aim is to stretchconsumer credulity in as compelling away as possible, just like the Trickster.Much of what these modern-dayshamans do is not deliberate, but drawson unconscious ideas, fuelled by cotactswith the Trickster within themselves.

What can we learn from this? GreatTrickster advertising:● Transforms ordinary ‘stuff’ into some-thing extraordinary, a brand; thephysical product is entwined with symbols and meanings so the real andcreated worlds are as one● Breaks taboos and conventions; theTrickster deliberately pushes, questionsand extends the boundaries of logic andrationality● Fascinates and compels; we know weare being sold to, but we also need toenjoy our irrational selves; we becomeaccomplices to our own seduction● Is at the same time childish and adult,simple and complex, foolish and serious,exaggerated yet practical; the Trickster issatirical, including satire on itself.

Consumers respond negatively toslick, bland, predictable ads from facelesscorporations.They prefer ads that createnew rules. This is precisely what greatTrickster ads do – they break the rulesand create new ones, where the Tricksterworks by stealth, or is so outrageous as tobe acceptable.There is undeniable mys-tery here, but such ads are intrinsicallymotivating, playful and engaging.This isnot to say that all ads that break the rulesare effective, since they can also bedeceptive, subverting the brand’s values.How the Trickster is used depends onthe brand, category and target market,but its presence is necessary to achievegreat advertising.

The Trickster in market research The Trickster is central to the creativeprocesses in advertising. However, it isdifficult, complex (and slippery) for market research to access and capture.The Trickster is also at work in researchinterviews as interviewers, consciously orunconsciously, influence the data theycollect, respondents lie, invent or create‘worthy’ responses, and clients engage inself-deception, wittingly or unwittingly,when interpreting data.This is why thereare so many criticisms of advertisingresearch. They apply methods that cannot ‘see’ the Trickster. Due to themindset in such tests, the Trickster elements are destroyed in favour of rational claims, which are often dull orbland, lacking persuasive power.

For research, the Trickster presents achallenge. It is clearly wrong to usemethods that cannot recognise it. Datacollection and analysis – quantitative andqualitative – must be freed of the con-straints of rationality or prejudice, anduse approaches appropriate for detectingTrickster effects. For example, freer,more open interviewing, fun and playful-ness, identifying the negatives of slicknessand blandness, patterns of unconsciousTrickster effects that go beyond superfi-cial appearance.All this, of course, in thecontext of the brand and its vision.

The futureThe Trickster has a long history, and willcontinue to appear in different guises inthe future with new media, brands andadvertising to delight us. In fact in ourview, the Trickster will become

increasingly important, as brands movefrom functionality to emotion. Brandingand advertising appeal to our desires tobe enticed, convinced and seduced, inspite of our rational defences. We are seeing a shift towards increasingly highconsumer expectations of advertising.

The consequences of the Trickster are:● Creativity in marketing, branding andadvertising has more opportunity toexpress itself than may be suspected● Specific Trickster mechanisms –anthropomorphism, illusion, irony – canbe developed to achieve greater effect● Research methods, quantitative andqualitative, must acknowledge the Trick-ster in data collection and interpretation.

The upshot is a compelling model ofthe modern consumer mind, by whichwe can obtain a deeper understanding ofbrands and great advertising. ■

A F Bandalier: The Delight Makers, Dodd Mead,New York, 1918.P Cooper & S Patterson: The Trickster; a Theory of Modern Branding and Advertising, ESOMAR:Excellence in international research, 2000.P Cooper & S Patterson:The Trickster:Creativityin Modern Branding and Advertising, MRS Conference, 2000.C G Jung: The Archetypes and the CollectiveUnconscious, in H Read et al,eds The CollectedWorks of C G Jung, vol 9, pt 1,ARK, 1972.K Kerenyi: Hermes,Guide of Souls, Spring Pubs,Woodstock, 1996.P Radin:The Trickster, Routledge, 2nd ed, 1956.

Peter Cooper isCEO of CRAMInternational andchairman of EverydayLives Ltd andQualiQuant Ltd.As apsychologist he is anexpert on consumermotivation and MR,and works on branddevelopment aroundthe world.

Simon Patterson isMD of CRAMInternational, anddirector of CRAMAsia. His speciality isexploring the consumermind using extendedcreativity groups. Healso lectures in the UKand overseas onqualitative research.

Above: Like shamans, creatives engage inmysterious rituals