Order quadrant · Seek Meaning
The Explorer.
Invite people to explore the brand, the world, and finally themselves.
- The North Face
- Jeep
- REI
Ego quadrant · Leave a Legacy
The Outlaw.
Act as an agent of change, taking the customer’s side against the way things are done.
- Harley-Davidson
- Virgin
- Diesel
Side by side, dimension by dimension.
| Dimension | ExplorerOrder · Seek Meaning | OutlawEgo · Leave a Legacy |
|---|---|---|
| Drive | Adventure, freedom, novelty, self-discovery, discovery. | Freedom, change, justice, independence, revenge. |
| Fear | Restraint, stillness, entrapment, confinement, caution. | Bondage, conformity, complacency, powerlessness, dependence. |
| Strategy | Invite people to explore the brand, the world, and finally themselves. | Act as an agent of change, taking the customer’s side against the way things are done. |
| Counterweight | Usually Sage, Outlaw, or Caregiver. The secondary decides whether the journey seeks truth, freedom, or others. | Usually Jester, Hero, or Everyman. The secondary sets whether the refusal is funny, noble, or shared. |
| Shadow form | Aimlessness. Restlessness for its own sake. Refusal to commit. | Nihilism. Cruelty. Becoming the thing it once opposed. |
| Brand risk | Vague. The brand never names what it is for, only what it is against (the indoors). | Self-parody. The brand becomes a uniform; the rebellion becomes a marketing position. |
| Best when | The product enables a real journey or shifts the customer’s sense of what is possible. | The product makes a substantive critique of the category and offers a better alternative. |
| Often confused with | The Outlaw. Both reject the mainstream. | The Explorer. Both attract customers who want to be seen as independent. |
| Famous example | REI: #OptOutside, 2015. | Apple: 1984, 1984. Diesel: Be Stupid, 2010. |
Where they’re alike
Both stand outside the system.
Explorer and Outlaw both build customer bases out of people who don’t want to be told what to want. Both are attractive to the kind of buyer who is, or believes themselves to be, the first to do something. Both can claim authenticity in a way that mainstream brands cannot. Both produce iconic visual languages that resist imitation.
Where they diverge
The Explorer is leaving. The Outlaw is fighting.
The Explorer’s relationship to the mainstream is indifference: it has somewhere else to be. The Outlaw’s relationship to the mainstream is opposition: it cannot exist without the thing it opposes. The Explorer’s product is a path forward. The Outlaw’s product is a stake driven into the ground.
A note on diagnosis
If your brand is reading as both, ask what it would do if the mainstream agreed with it.
An Explorer brand keeps moving when the mainstream catches up; the journey was never about the mainstream. An Outlaw brand has a problem when the mainstream catches up; the opposition was the position. Which scenario is more uncomfortable for your company tells you which archetype you actually are.
Read in full
The Explorer.
Three case studies, three commercials, the diagnostic signals.
Read in full
The Outlaw.
Three case studies, three commercials, the diagnostic signals.
The instrument
The Brand Diagnostic.
Read your own brand and see whether the archetype is coming through Expressed, Suppressed, or Distorted.