Coming Closer to Consumer-driven Christianity

Last week we started off by discussing Church growth specialists. These good friends are emphasizing the importance of a Church's uniqueness in attracting a certain class or type of members. We said that in their minds of business, Churches are religious brands in the market economy of religious goods and services. But if denominations can be treated as brands, how does this branding contribute to the overriding mission of the universal Church of Christ?

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's goods or services as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name. Branding therefore can be defined as the process of creating uniqueness of one seller or product from another. Branding creates brand identity which is a unique set of brand associations. These brand associations represent what the brand stands for and imply a promise to customers from the organization members.

A brand is itself a product in the first place. For example, some people will prefer Nike running shoes to Adidas even if both these two serve the same purpose. A brand becomes a product especially when it possesses attributes, qualities, values, uses, and users that would prefer it to other similar products in the market. Branding can also be in form of an organization’s name. As an organization, a brand will be appreciated on the grounds of innovation, consumer concern, trustworthiness, and scope of operation.

To succeed at creating a brand, an organization needs to position the brand in such a way that it appeals to a target audience, is actively communicated, and provides competitive advantage. A brand’s success is measured by its ability to compete favorably in the market by maintaining a competitive price, outmatching its competitors, being consistent in innovation, meeting the needs of the market segment, and its ability to avoid short term pressures.

As we said last week, Church growth experts are adopting Church marketing concepts not so different from consumer product branding. Church growth experts are emphasizing such elements of Church growth as strategic planning, positioning, demographic segmentation, niche marketing, differentiation, and individual satisfaction. In his book “Church Marketing: Breaking Ground for the Harvest,” Church growth and Church research specialist George Barna devotes an entire chapter to the concept of Church positioning. Barna writes that one of the keys to positioning a Church is to be the first to get to the desired position within people’s perceptual maps. This is because in our information-saturated, overstimulated, laden-with-choices society, people remember and accept the first entity that satisfactorily fills their mental void. In other words Barna is saying that a Church needs to position itself in such a way that it outperforms its competitors; competitors in this case being other Churches or places of worship.

Barna continues to write that in order for a Church to achieve favorable positioning, it has to learn how to engage in target marketing. Target marketing is the process of dividing the aggregate population the Church could serve into discrete, definable portions, and identifying one or a few portions on which the Church will focus its efforts. Barna adds that almost all successful marketers these days engage in target marketing. In Barna’s opinion, a Church needs to select a target audience and offer people a restricted product base (i.e. services people need), one that fits its vision for ministry. The Church should focus upon meeting the needs of a targeted portion of the aggregate area.

By recommending target marketing for a Church, Barna assumes that the Church can be marketed the same way as any other consumer product. Barna assumes a comparative relationship between desires for material goods and services, and desire for religion. But just how similar are these two?

Hang on till next time.

Happy New Year!