Marketing Religion
Mother Theresa was probably the BEST marketer of the 20th Century. Her directive from senior management was to “go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” She ended up running 610 missions in 123 countries. It’s downhill from there though.
The chill-out room at schoolies week. School scripture. Suspicious looking ‘learn to surf’ lessons run by smiley people with tents. Bob Dylan’s Slow Train Coming album.
The two young men in suits with nametags, door-knocking on a bright Sunday morning. Hillsong. Ted Haggard.
Missionaries, ‘helping’ the aborigines, the islanders, the Africans and the Chinese.
The man standing on a street corner, quoting from the bible and talking about the end of the world.
Abortion ‘help lines’. Jihad training centres.
Terrorism.
Religious people do some terrible marketing, but they’re incredibly effective at it. Proof, I think, that the more remarkable your product is, the less you need to worry about strategy.
Name one other brand people are quite literally happy to die for. And don’t say Marlboro.
Tags: religion
Bruce Nelson
November 18th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
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Religion and marketing have a long association. Don’t forget the primary method of spreading the word (whichever you follow) is by word of mouth - kind of ironic given the age of social media.
St Paul was the first PR practitioner as he was able to facilitate an obscure cult into a succinct religious group. The word propaganda, often used to describe the results of PR practitioners, has its origins in the church as part of the great commission - to go and propagate the word of god. And lets not forget about the inquisition - a marketing coup de grace.
What I find particularly interesting (and a tad worrying) is when such an incredibly powerful message (again, whichever you follow) is coupled with incredibly powerful communication methods.
Will our new age of communication also create a new age of religious zeal?
Daniel Oyston
November 18th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
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How about their country? Australia is a brand and we have a proud history of soldiers fighting for Australia.
I liked that Mother Theresa quote. Reminded me of a conference I was at and the bloke responsible for coordinating Australia’s response to the Boxing Day Tsunami (sorry, can’t remember his name) explained how he was called into his boss’ office and told “Fill a ship and do some good”.
admin
November 19th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
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Bruce, I think our new age of communication will expose more truths behind organised religion and people will have far more information at their disposal for making informed decisions. I think some religions will suffer and others will flourish as people have a much greater opportunity to research the differences between all of them. Buddhism is looking pretty good to me!
Daniel, I was going to include countries as another example, but geez, I’m loathed to refer to ‘Australia’ as a brand - even if Baz Luhrmann and the national tourism commission aren’t!
Bruce Nelson
November 19th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
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Call me a cynic, but I think the more information people have on which to make a decision has an inverse influence on the decision they actually make. Religion also has the added bonus of eternal life, which brings a whole new dimension of buy-in altogether.
I think it was Satre who described atheism as a ‘god’ shaped hole in the heart, and commentators are saying that in this day and age of consumerism that more and more people are looking for some way to fill that hole. If there’s more information about the ‘way’ or ‘ways’ of religion then I think there’s more probability of people following than questioning.
Just look at the ads still running for ‘get rich schemes’ and the take up (and eventual loses).