Church – Forget About Your Brand Image. Concentrate On Your Soul

Brilliant article from Jamey Boiter on Fast Company on the mess that BP is in with it's brand image and the recent oil spill in the Gulf near the south coast of the USA.

"Yet BP forgot a very basic principle of brand repositioning, building and marketing: Deliver on the promise of the brand. You can create anything, but it's only when a company embraces the pillars, the tenants of the brand, that this becomes reality. Pretty logos mean nothing if your actions don’t back up what you say.  As Gardiner Morse pointed out earlier this week for the Harvard Business Review, BP forgot to "walk the talk".

The Church and Christianity at times suffers the same "image problem".

Many Christians don't deliver on the "brand promise" of Jesus in their lives. They only embrace the pillars and the tenants of being a follower of Christ. Rather than backing up what they believe with our actions. They aren't walking the talk. (When I say they, I definately include myself in that.)

Sure, churches may have the slickest websites, the coolest logo, iPhone/iPad church App, the most famous/most eloquent speaking Pastor, but if we as Christians don't deliver on the brand promise of Jesus, if we can't tell our story through the transformed lives of our people, of ourselves, then the promises are just hollow and empty.

Not even a complete advertising and brand makeover of Christianity by Australian ad agencies could solve this problem a like this.

What do you think Jesus promised? What picture did he create of what a disciple would look and act like?

What do you think people are expecting to see in people who go to church?

Is there a gap?

Do they like Jesus, but not the church? Or is that they think we Christians have infact become unchristian?

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How To Avoid A PR Disaster At Your Church: Part 2
How To Avoid A PR Disaster At Your Church: Part 3

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4 comments

  1. I think there’s a gap for sure. Image helps, but there are eternal, core principles that matter so much more – principles that relate to loving people, communicating effectively, and living consistent lives. Brand image is just the icing on what should be a really good cake!

  2. I have answered your tweet-to-action and I will offer you this comment…
    Both of us probably read far too many church-related blog posts on a daily basis. This means you will probably know of the article I want to quote – What If Church Was A Four-letter Word? http://is.gd/c4BP2 [SHRiNKthechurch]
    “What if church was more than a building or a 70-minute service and more to do with the redeemed people of God living out the implications of the gospel together on mission with the entirety of their lives?”
    – Chris Gonzalez, Missio Dei Communities
    Something about this idea resonates with me and, to a certain extent, also speaks to another side to your post.
    At the same time as we question the branding of a church, do we also need to consider the personal brands of its individual members?

  3. I think it was motorola that did some research that discovered that their best marketing ROI came from the satisfactory resolution of customer problems. I can’t remember the exact numbers but it was something like for every 100 resolutions that were satisfactory to the individual client, 23 new sales were generated. Wow, imagine that – a multi-national treating people as individuals rather than as a crowd. The phrase that has always stuck with me from Rick Warren’s Purpose driven church is this: look after your people, and they will look after the church. When church leadership becomes more focused on people development instead of crowd control, the results will blow any marketing campaign methodology out of the water.

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