Market research opinions change by the minute - Archetypes endure. Learn how underlying human imprinting really guides our attitudes and behavior.

   Dr. G. Clotaire Rapaille is an internationally known expert in Archetype Discoveries and Creativity. His unique approach to marketing combines a psychiatrist's depth of analysis with a businessman's attention to practical concerns.  He has written more than ten books on these topics.  One of his books, Creative Communication, has become the standard reference for the French advertising industry.  He is a sought-after lecturer on creativity and communication.

    Dr. Rapaille's technique for market research has grown out of his work in the areas of psychiatry, psychology, and cultural anthropology. His work is an extension of the work done by many of the great scholars of the twentieth century, including Jung, Laing, Levi-Strauss, and Ruth Benedict.

    Dr. Rapaille's psychiatric work and research with autistic children led him to develop a new process for understanding how children are imprinted for the first time by what he calls the Logic of Emotion, which is the code of each Cultural Archetype in the collective unconscious of a given culture.

    Dr. Rapaille’s approach has been covered by 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II, Fox News, CNN Financial, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Fortune and Forbes. His newest book, The Culture Code has reached #7 on the Amazon Business Weekly List.

    Dr. Rapaille's world travels, a term in the diplomatic corps, and extensive marketing research on product archetypes for international corporations, have given him a fresh perspective on American business and American society.  He received a Masters of Political Science, a Masters of Psychology, and a Doctorate of Medical Anthropology from the Universite De Paris - Sorbonne.   He is fluent in English, French, and Spanish.

    He has been retained by clients such as Citibank, Diner’s Club, GMAC Insurance, Kellogg, Kraft, Proctor & Gamble, Royal Trust, CIBC and Security Pacific Bank and dozens more Fortune 500 firms.

What are Archetypes and why are they crucial to your marketing and service efforts?

   Dr. Rapaille started his work on Archetype Discoveries in 1976 to provide answers to the question: Why do people do what they do? It identifies their unstated needs and wants.  This is in sharp contrast to the traditional market research, which relies specifically on what the permanent underlying structure of what people say through opinion surveys, focus groups or interviews to forecast behaviors.  Archetype Discoveries digs under our "rational" reasoning, to uncover the true emotional and biological roots of our opinions and behaviors.  Understanding this unconscious foundation gives us the tools to better motivate consumers, design new products, and improve communications strategies.

    Unlike opinions that can change in a minute, cultural archetypes are deeply imprinted on a people’s minds and strongly rooted in cultural codes. The imprints forma a permanent platform for marketing, service, product design, innovation and improvement of products, processes and communication strategies.

    An Archetype can be thought of as a model after which other things can be patterned, a prototype or a permanent underlying structure.  We can discover archetypes by analyzing and understanding what Dr. Rapaille has identified as the "collective cultural unconscious".  This collective cultural unconscious can be further defined as a pool of shared imprinting experiences that unconsciously pre-organize and influence the behavior of a culture.

    To further understand the imprinting concept, we look at the human brain, which has billions of potential connections, similar to that of a worldwide telephone communications network.  Put very simply by Dr. Rapaille, "You have all the potential connections of the network, but you don't have the telephone number.  The first imprint is pre-organized by the culture.  Emotion is the energy that is necessary to create the imprint and produce the neurotransmitters in the brain."

    It is obvious that people cannot tell you about their unconscious needs, but it is also obvious that this unconscious is the most important factor in their decision making process. Companies that do a lot of market research, and rely on opinion polls, admit the results are often confusing and contradictory.