By Charles Peirce
Originating in the thinking of Plato but finding its modern applications from the work of Carl Jung, Archetype Theory is a way of looking at and defining the world that has numerous uses, particularly in marketing and storytelling. At the least, Archetype Theory gives a structural thematic underpinning to organize ideas around. At the greatest, Archetype Theory might allow a primal, subconscious form of resonance and communication with audiences — speaking to them beyond the limits of language.
Making a great movie is hard. Marketing a movie might be even harder. There are many good movies every year, but there are far fewer well-marketed ones. The list of people (and studios) who market films successfully year after year is a very elite club.
Strategy is a great personal passion, but something I find few people have an adequate grasp of. While the basic assumption seems to be that advice of all kinds is inherently strategic and of value, it is often anything but. Any given suggestion or piece of advice is only worthwhile inasmuch as it allows the attaining of a goal — without knowing that goal and measuring the success of attempts to attain it, you are not operating strategically: you are merely using tactics of unknown value. 
There’s a certain watercooler betting-pool mentality that accompanies the box office results of movies, as though their success were completely encapsulated in a single opening weekend’s results. This despite the fact that everybody knows Hollywood accounting is particularly slippery, that budgets never reveal the accompanying marketing costs of films, that foreign market revenue is increasingly important to the success of many films, and that ancillarly sales can be a primary rather than secondary revenue stream. Nonetheless, we seem to equate box office numbers with whether a film worked, whether it’s worth anyone’s time, and whether it’s going to ruin somebody’s career or save it. 
It all started just as the Chris Christie Bridge-ghazi scandal was gathering steam. Like many, I googled the besieged Governor to see if there were any new developments.
