10 Common Branding Mistakes That Churches Make
Effective branding for churches has never been more important. We live in a media-driven age where first impressions last and a church’s brand presence can literally be the difference someone coming to visit a church or not. A church ‘brand’ is so much more than just the logo. It’s also the language that is used, the visual look and feel around the logo, the kinds of photos used. Ultimately a successful church brand can be defined by the power and focus of the story you tell.
Phil Cooke is the author of Branding Faith defines a brand this way “It’s about the story that surrounds who you are – a story that creates focus for your ministry.” (You can buy his updated book called Unique, I’ve already pre-ordered it!)
Here are some of the common mistakes I’ve seen churches and ministries make with their branding:
1. A logo has to be an all encompassing theological statement
I’ve seen this so many times where the logo looks like it is two or three completely different concepts that were presented by the graphic designer mashed-up together to create the logo so that it covers every point of the most important parts of a church’s theology. A logo (or brand mark as some people call them) doesn’t need to say everything, just one thing that is really at the core of what your church is about.
2. There HAS to be a cross
Disagree? The early church didn’t use the cross to identify itself. It used a fish. Sure you can creatively use a cross in many ways and that’s fine, but if you have a clean slate you don’t need to be locked into having a cross in your church logo.
3. Logo’s are best designed by committees
A committee isn’t the best place to agree on a clear visual direction. There is always such a diverse number of views you nearly always will end up with #1. I’m not saying that your new church logo needs to be an autocratic decision, but the people you put in the decision-making process need to be the right people, not a crowd.
4. Use large/successful church names in a church name
If I had a dollar for every time I see a church with the words WillowBackPointeSongHillC3CreekSaddleNorthEvelate.tv in it I would be a millionaire. Don’t be a carbon copy of another church. There are many relevant names that your church can use. Linking your name to a successful church just is setting yourself up to fail. Rather ask yourself what is it that makes us distinctive? What is the story we have to tell?
On a side note, I’ve seen really awful names that don’t copy a large church. I recently saw a church called the True Jesus church. Honestly what were they thinking? That people are driving around looking for churches and thinking that’s a church we must visit because it’s the True Jesus church, not like that other church that obviously is the pretend Jesus church. If you think that is a bad name for a church check out this list I blogged about a few years ago. There are also a few handy hints to a healthy process in deciding what your church is called.
5. The building is the hero photo
Want to make your brochure and website really come alive? Put your church building on it!
No. Don’t. Please.
The church is about people, not a building. Visitors are not interested in your building, they are interested in your story, community, faith expression, what you stand for, why you exist, not a building.
6. The Pastor is the hero photo
See previous rationale.
7. Use Acronyms
I’ve seen something like this before. “Come along to B.A.S.E it’s going to be epic!’ I was taught at a very early branding Padawan age, if the acronym isn’t in your common culture (not church culture, but the wider culture) then don’t use an acronym. A great way to exclude new people from the life of your church.
8. Only use trendy names
This is similar to #7. I also see mostly generational ministries use trendy, abstract names which is fine, if you lead with the generational age group rather than the name. For example ‘Are you a teenager?Come along to Vibe and connect into community on Tuesdays’. Don’t do this ‘Come along to Vibe and connect into community on Tuesdays’.
9. Use words that don’t reflect who you really are
Words like, contemporary, inclusive, edgy, traditional, young families, teenagers all describe a point in life or a way of expressing how you ‘do’ church. If you are going to summarise yourself in these ways then you need to be accurate. If you say that you are a church for young families, you better have lots of young families and not just aspire to having them.
10. Only talk about your church
Instead of websites or marketing collateral that just talk about their own church is about, church leaders need to ask what are the meaningful ways they can be of service? Is it a life stage, or a pain point where their church can help bring healing. It’s not just about what a church is about, but how a church can help.
Your turn
What common branding mistakes have you seen and what would you do to fix it? Comment below.
I would say that a main pet peeve of mine would be the Church that doesn’t seem to have a clear brand vision or does such a bad job of communicating it that it doesn’t matter even if they did have one. Typically, these seem to be the Churches that try to be trendy for the sake of being trendy. All that does is take away from the core message of the gospel… it becomes a distraction instead of a value add to the Church.
Lastly, whatever the Church brand ends up communicating, if it leaves out Christ as the centerpiece it is a huge fail IMO.
Agreed Justin, Churches should be all about Jesus and tell people that!
Being trendy for the sake of it never works, although I wouldn’t say it takes away from the core message of the gospel, it just may mean that they end up being perceived as try hards, or something that they are not. A well presented brand presence often is invisible to the western mind because it looks good, it can actually remove barriers to the gospel, rather than build them up. I would say that bad design of any kind is more of a barrier than anything.
Yeah I hear you. I’ve never thought of it that way in the context of a Church brand before. BTW did you create the graphic at the top of this post? It’s clever
Hi Justin, Yes I did! It’s an homage to global brands.
Your link to a blog post about bad church names is broken. Please fix. I want to read it! Thanks!
Thanks Marilyn, I’ve fixed the link… here it is for you http://www.stevefogg.com/2010/07/08/10-tips-to-help-you-successfully-rename-your-church/
Great insights, Steve. Branding takes a lot of effort to make it synonymous to your niche. Churches aren’t singled out on this one either.
#11 – Branding is a ‘business’ thing.
I actually think that branding at it’s core is a God thing. We we’re created in His image and are told to love, forgive, have mercy, help the poor & needy, the widow & orphan the same way Jesus walked this earth. In a grand scheme if we (Christians) can’t grasp this concept we call ‘branding’ than moving any forward in any type of it is building ourselves on sandy foundations.
#12 – Every department and ministry needs to be sub-branded. (Especially if the church’s brand still weak)
Our church fell into this a long time before I was hired and has been a redemption story in itself to change and simplify. We call them ‘silos’. Basically people working on their own (which is good work) and not being a part of the bigger story going on in the church. Ultimately I think it’s saying they don’t want to be a part of a BIGGER story (God’s story).
I think the hardest part about Church Branding is having the right person to manage all the assets and continue to coach people in the way of your church’s brand. Justin said it well – “I would say that a main pet peeve of mine would be the Church that doesn’t seem to have a clear brand vision or does such a bad job of communicating it that it doesn’t matter even if they did have one.”
Oh, snap. You nailed it.
We’re in a rather unique place right now: Our Baptist church is merging with another Baptist church in our city. How do you feel about whether to include “Baptist” in the name? It’s certainly who we are, but many people don’t understand what that word really means and the last thing we want to do is alienate people before they even come in. Personally I think we should leave it off. By the way, NEVER use an apostrophe to denote plural. (Logo’s what?)
Thanks for the grammar check Robert!
Regarding including Baptist in your church name, it depends on who you want to reach. Unchurched people I don’t are particularly aligned with a denomination, many don’t know what one is I would suspect.
Hi friends. For years we’ve been making a lot of the mistakes you mention here and sti are. We’re in the process of ‘re-purposing’ our church right now. It’s slow going. Like turning an oil tanker around.
One of the big considerations is the change of our name and culture. We are, at the moment, called the wessex christian centre. We are 30 years old and that worked up to 10 years ago. Now it has to go. It’s no longer relevant to who we are or what we’re doing. We struggle with a building that people simply don’t know is a church despite our attempt at rebranding 7 years ago. We struggle with being a down town church in the UK where people don’t want to travel to, though the building is massively useful and a real asset. But over years we have become a consumer church rather than a contributing church. We no longer have our people bringing the unsaved. We rarely see ‘seekers’ and most of our people just want to be fed instead of discovering their God given mission in life.
I want our church to be a place where people discover those ministries, discover answers, discover community, love, belonging, and grace…..and ultimately discover Jesus. That’s why we’re planning to change our name to ‘DISCOVERchurch’.
Any feedback or opinion would be greatly received. Obviously you guys are in the States so certain points don’t transpose too well but I’d love to hear from you.
Bless you
Julian.
I disagree with your point about the pastor’s picture. We live in a visual world. If people see a picture of the Pastor it helps them in some way to identify with the church. The late Jack Hyles Pastor of the largest Independent Baptist Church in America (attendance ranging in the 30,000) always told pastors to put their picture on their tracts. He was a success. Period.
It never hurts for people to see who the pastor is. Look at billboards. The whole advertising industry does this. In effect that’s exactly what you’re doing advertising your church.
Nice article as usual Steve. Kind of late to the comments, but then you did resurface this just recently! 🙂
First, on the topic of what churches can do wrong in imaging can be pinpointed to, well, the images. Do you use stock images of people no one will ever see at your church; or do you use pictures of real people before, during or after a real service? I get frustrated myself when I see stock photography being implemented into the design simply because “we haven’t the time for the real stuff.” To counter this what we personally have done is created a “Team Night” whereby leaders (employees) and volunteers are welcome and encouraged to attend a mass gathering where our team of contract photographers are able to take shots at free will of folks interacting at the campuses. I think it helps to connect to members of the church more.
In addition one of the most destructive teams at a church can be the…brace yourselves…creative team. I now this is not a popular discussion because many times the creative team(s) has members on it who have great connections in the church, are family members of the pastor or executives, etc. But seriously, as you mentioned above for committees and logos sometimes the larger the creative team the worse the results. We get lost in an emphasis of design over usability.
Pastor Wilcox: I think you make very valid points. But I wonder if Steve perhaps meant the ONLY images of people you see are the pastor (and possibly wife)? I can see where that breeds a different kind of worship mentality. I see it sometimes at our church: when our pastor is not going to be present due to being out of town many people will not attend. Of course with Free Chapel our pastor is not necessarily nor inherently associated solely with the church (he has his own ministry, television program, etc.). I think with what you stated, I would highly agree to introduce the pastor on the website and any marketing material with a nice, professional shot of just him/her and preferably with spouse if applicable. Oh, and Pastor Wilcox, thank you for the information about Pastor Hyles I was unaware of his emphasis on this fact. 🙂
As always Steve keep doing what you do, I love it and it is helping churches help so many. God bless.
#5 – couldn’t agree more, yet there is a bit of a catch 22. You want new visitors to your website to leave it knowing what your building looks like. That way it is recognizable if they drive by or when they first arrive. There is something welcoming about that. But, I don’t think it’s place is in any hero/header area.
Good read. I love the part about there having to be a cross and the pastor being the hero and logos being designed by committees. Absolutely love it. We make the mistake in thinking that we are to operate as the world. There are some great takeaways and principles we can grab from business culture but not everything applies.
I believe branding is a key ingredient to creating a church that is attractive to people because of the clarity it provides. People love clarity.
I love Steve’s point about branding being more than the logo.
One branding tip I have found is to use photography of the church experience in advertising. This presents a genuine feel that people like. One of the biggest questions people have when checking out a church online is “what do I wear?”
When people can quickly understand who you are it is a huge win in getting them to show up. In our culture, going to church is not normal. It’s like going to a wedding you were not invited to so churches have to be intentional with their brand so they can bring down barriers that prevent people from visiting.
As believers we are to be the light of the world so churches must be intentional about letting our light shine in our communities. Branding allows this to take place so a church is able to shine brightly to glorify Jesus.
Thank you for sharing this information Steve!