Food for Thought...

I pulled this off of one of the blogs I read.
What is so interesting is that this morning I read another post titled "Stop Marketing Your Church." It was Ok.

This was far more interesting because this is written by someone from outside of the church trying to offer us pastors advice. It got me thinking...

October 21, 2008

Time for an Almighty Rebrand

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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