THE OUTLAW
Rules are meant to be broken.
The Outlaw delights in disruption and craves release from mainstream values and taboos. They revel in shocking, disturbing, and generally violating propriety. The Outlaw is driven to rebel against injustice and powerlessness by destroying or attacking whatever is not working for them.
While this brand should come with a warning sticker because of the extremes of shadow side - evoking anger, violence, and even death - it should not be dismissed as pure dark side. While some archetypes like the Hero have a conceivably unwarranted positive bias, the Outlaw has the opposite. Outlaw culture can not only act as a healthy release valve but gives us leave to question toxic assumptions.
This archetype is also called the Activist, Challenger, Enemy, Iconoclast, Liberator, Maverick, Misfit, Rebel, Reformer, Revolutionary, Villain, and Wild Man or Woman.
OUTLAW BRANDS
The Outlaw is a good identity for brands if:
-
Customers and employees are feeling very disaffiliated from society or identify with values at odds with those of society at large.
-
The function of your product is to destroy something (actually, like a bulldozer, or virtually, like many video games) or is genuinely revolutionary.
-
Your product is not very good for people, so that using it is akin to thumbing your nose at society’s ideas of what constitutes health.
-
Your product helps retain values that are threatened by prevailing ones or pioneers new and revolutionary attitudes.
-
Your product or service upsets the status quo.
-
Your product empowers the disenfranchised.
Outlaw Mindset
DESIRE: Disruption, Revenge or revolution, freedom from mainstream values and convention
GOAL: To destroy what is not working
GIFT: Outrageousness, freedom
CALL: Injustice, powerlessness, feeling mistreated or attacked
ENJOYS: Getting away with things; violating propriety, to shock or disturb
FEAR: Powerlessness, being trivialized or inconsequential
SHADOW: Going to the dark side, criminality
Levels of the Outlaw
Level 1: Identifying as an outsider, developing unconventional values and behaviors
Level 2: Shocking or disruptive behavior
Level 3: Becoming a rebel or revolutionary
SIMILAR ARCHETYPES
THE 12 BRAND ARCHETYPES
The 12 Brand Archetypes were developed by Carol Pearson and Margaret Mark as a system for consistently creating stronger and more meaningful brands. The content on this site has been paraphrased where possible, and cited directly where needed to maintain accuracy.
Something VERY exciting is coming.
If you're serious about learning how to create a brand that is singular, specific, and deliciously irresistible; a new project from the OS World Building Studio is launching soon!
Click the button to be added to the VIP waitlist.
You will get the special early-bird promo code available to early subscribers—and you definitely don't want to miss this!