I found myself in a rather unusual position last weekend – on a pew in a church in Glasgow. One of my oldest friends was having his first born christened. He had managed, with the convincing promise of a post-ceremonial drinking session, to convince me to attend the event. So there I sat. In the back row. Dreading everything that the next hour promised to deliver.
To my surprise, however, the priest gave an extremely interesting and contemporary sermon. He talked about a Tom Cruise movie, post-modern philosophy and, of course, God. Despite, or indeed perhaps because of, his eloquence I began to consider all the factors that have deterred me and the majority of the British public from attending church regularly. This is, after all, a marketing problem: why don’t people consume God?
We live in a society that has never needed God more. We are confused, unhappy, depressed, lacking spirituality, and lonely. Aside from previous world wars, the demand for God has presumably never been higher.
Despite this a recent survey estimated that the church’s market share in the UK is only 7.5% of the population, and falling. The problem must therefore exist on the supply side. During the communion I worked out some marketing recommendations to solve the problem.
First, the effort to restore credibility in the ongoing wake of sex scandals must not wane. Transparency and complete disclosure is paramount.
Second, we have to change the leadership structure. Archbishops are not just leaders of the faith they are CEOs. We need men and women who understand God (on the supply side) but also the public (on the demand side) and have a strong sense of strategy (ideally a good MBA).
Third, the positioning of the church is wrong. We need to connect it with the needs of today’s society not those of past generations, and it will take qualitative and quantitative research to identify these.
We will also need to position God against the true competition – consumer culture. People now get their answers from the brands that they consume.
We all question the value of different brands and ads within our culture, but never the consumer culture itself. Religion must reclaim its territory by showing consumer culture to be a less meaningful method for living out your life.
Fourth, we have to completely revisit the church’s approach to marketing communications. Tatty pamphlets and screen-printed posters are ineffective, and aimed exclusively at existing worshippers. We need an integrated marketing communications strategy that embraces advertising (especially radio), direct marketing, PR, and a strong online presence.
Fifth, we need to scrap the traditional church interior. Hard pews and exposed brickwork are not consistent with market-oriented religion. Let’s hire Imagination, the brand experience people, to come up with a better contextual setting for experiencing God.
How do we pay for this? Out with the weekly collection: is there any better example of the archaic status of the church than a bowl being passed around for loose change? Instead we will bring in a CRM strategy with different payment plans including easy-pay direct debit.
Society cries for salvation, but God’s brand needs an overhaul. Will it work? God only knows.
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4 comments
Gareth
October 21, 2008 at 8:09 am
Hi Mark,
As another Brit who has grown up seeing the Church as a big grey building that white, lower-middle-class pensioners go at the weekend to sing dreary hymns, America is quite eye-opening with it’s vast range of approaches to marketing religion.
There’s churches and programs aimed at everyone from pre-teens to the unemployed, thriving churches for ethnic groups (Russian Orthodox, Chinese Catholics, etc), some of whom have vast marketing budgets.
One of my clients is a very hip web development agency who’re involved in setting up a major social networking project aimed at teens for a religious organization with almost half a billion dollars to spend on marketing.
It’s a rather different world over here – perhaps because religion is still a major part of the national discourse.
75% of the UK still aligns with some religion (only 10% less than the US) so it shows there’s a vast untapped market out there for Brand God.
Jay Ehret
October 21, 2008 at 9:23 am
Spot on, Mark when you said “We need to connect it with the needs of today’s society not those of past generations.” Evangelist Ken Ham calls it speaking to the Jews, when you should be speaking to the Greeks. Meaning churches speak to the unsaved as if they already understand the spiritual foundation with a “do you have a personal relationship with Christ message.”
Churches are not speaking to the un-churched in a way that resonates. Their brand is all wrong. They want to evangelize and save new believers as Christ commissioned them to do, yet churches speak in a language only the saved understand.
Or worse, churches opt for a feel-good self-motivational message. They brand themselves as a sort of self-help church. But there are self-help gurus for that. Christian churches are about the salvation of Christ and everlasting life. Now it’s up to those churches to build a brand that communicates that message while resonating with the un-churched.
Beth Robinson
October 21, 2008 at 9:48 pm
That’s a fascinating way to think about it. There are certainly some more new age types that make use of modern techniques to fulfill individuals desires to connect to a higher purpose. It never occurred to me to wonder why the established religions didn’t take a similar approach.
Caroline Siemers
October 22, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Really enjoyed this, although one thought: “Should” God be just another product? It’s novel to think about pitching the church using these strategies and of course, they work. It’s just that…are we then selling God or just the experience of spiritual community? God-the-brand…compelling…what is the promise to consumers? Key messages? Call to action? We’ll be chatting on this all day!
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