If you could pick a marketing superpower what would it be? Mine?

It would be to write really brilliant copy.

Incredible designs appear average because the copy didn’t quite hit the mark. It’s also bloody hard to write. Especially for content writers working through 6-10 different clients, different voices different industries.

So where better to start than talking about SURREAL’s Marketing, specifically its advertising and approaches. They are a cereal brand that is raising a lot of eyebrows and a lot of murmurs as to how they do their marketing. So let’s get into it…

Who are SURREAL?

How can I use this Scenario, seriously?

Well it’s quite a simple process actually which has the following parts;

Brand archetypes

Personas

Copy / tone of voice

Positioning / brand strategy

If you’ve never heard about Brand archetypes before, well before you start thinking oh wow this newsletter has taken a turn, just stick with me for a sec…

Brand Archetypes

Do you remember that Carl Jung bloke from School/A-Level? Well, he came up with a personality profile, that we inherently call Brand archetypes within marketing.

Archetypes are distinct from personas (a word derived from Latin which means ‘mask’ oo fancy), which represents the image we wish to project to the outside world.

So basically, archetypes are more deeply routed than personality or personas, for me it’s the core of what a brand wants to portray to the world both internally and externally.

It’s where you can start to understand your values and what you stand for as a brand. In this case, a cereal brand that stands for playing at breakfast time. I’d put them in the Jester camp right next to a spray can of Old Spice and some very slick youtube adverts.

Who do they want to attract?

Although archetypes and personas are considered different, I’m actually going to use them together, because, well I can.

But, I do think it will give a clearer picture for SURREAL but also for insuring your marketing is firing to the people you want it to.

If you look at the way that SURREAL communicate, it’s very much using digital channels that perhaps gives a clearer sign to who they are going after, their funny playfulness likely plays with a younger audience, trying to capture an audience on its channels, it’s copy and links to food conscious folks – you can start to get a sense of who this brand is for.

So how do you work out your personas? Personify them!

For example;

What’s their name?

What do they do?

Where do they hang out?

What do they read / watch?

How do they communicate?

What do they care about?

What don’t they care about?

This isn’t an exhaustive list but if you haven’t done this before i’d really recommend doing it for your main target audience, start to paint a picture of George, Lilly or whoever you want to come up with and how you can help them with your brand.

Tone of Voice

Ok, so we now know what the core of your brand is and we’re getting a sense of who we’re going after. Now we need to know how we’re going to talk to them. What resonates with that audience? My top tips are:

Relevance – One of the key aspects I’d always suggest is asking yourself

‘Is this relevant to my target group?’

Do you think that this offers something relevant for your audience to engage with? Talking about a news topic 10 days late probably isn’t relevant, either is posting a meme that’s been going around for 4 days. Pick your battles, and do it with speed. That’s why knowing your audience is so important so it becomes second nature to you when you work at Usain Bolt speeds.

Being Human – We saw a lot of this in global news stories. The Ukrainian conflict, the news in the UK of the Autumn Budget and cost of inflation. Probably best not to make jokes about that, but understanding how your brand can be human in these situations is vital, even if that means you need to pull back your mask of being the ‘jester’ or the archetype your brand represents. Understand the general flow of news through your persona, how do they react to those topics or situations?

Emotion – What do you want your audience to feel? In SURREALS case it’s humour its funny its play. For you, it might be curiosity, inspiration or anger. There is a reason newspapers sell and that’s fear – it’s your brand you know the direction of travel.

I can’t tell you without knowing your brand what tone you should take, or even from an outsider what it already sounds like. I’m more than happy to give you some views if you want to hit me up with a message. I’d suggest using outside support to go through this process, as old habits, context or ego can sometimes get in the way of you presenting yourself without it, oops I said it 👀.

My final word on Tone of Voice is consistency, knowing ‘how’ to talk like you and write like you. Normally this is presented in a Tone of Voice doc, but like we all know, absolutely pointless unless you keep it alive day-to-day so make sure you figure out how to do this within your business.

Positioning / Brand Strategy

The final piece to the puzzle – we’ve got a potential audience, we know what we want to say and tell them – we now need to figure out where to tell them.

Therefore if you’re new to the game or looking to grow your audience in different areas, you need to go where your audience are. A bit like a needy friend at a party, you need to be there going ‘hey, I also love this place, but perhaps we could chat over here where I could show you my massive billboard.’

Keep your mind out of the gutter.

Where to place your advertising isn’t exactly difficult once you know this information. What you do need to think about is overlay this with the type of communications they are already seeing. Oh sorry, you thought you were the only one doing this game?

You need to think about how you stand out in a sea of sameness out there. SURREAL have used its unique tone of voice and playful manner across a cereal brand to do this. You’re not exactly seeing Frosty’s or Special K doing that = standing out.

So, now go forth and work out just how are you going to do that?