Faithfull brands

Id be very interested to see where Christianity would fall if it where to be included in the yearly survey of the worlds top 100 brands by Interbrand. I was chatting with a friend the other day, I can’t remember exactly what the topic of our conversation was but she happened to refer to religion as a brand. I realised that I had never looked at religion from a brand perspective in the technical sense. Once I did, I found that religions have all the classic components of brands. Ill use Christianity as an example as it the leader in this category with an estimated 2.1billion customers.

At its core a brand is a promise, a big idea and the expectations that reside inside a customers mind. Alina Wheeler goes on to say, “people fall in love with brands, they trust them, develop strong loyalties to them, buy them and believe in their superiority. According to this description it can then be said that Christianity is "the" quintessential brand.

A quick look at some of Christianities brand components:
1. The brand promise: Salvation
2. The logo: Holy Cross
3. Chairman of the Board: God
4. CEO: Jesus
5. Brand managers: Priests & Elders
6. Brand Standards Manual: The Bible

I personally find spiritual fulfilment from eastern teachings such as Buddhism, I don’t necessarily practice Buddhism but find the teachings to resonate with me. On occasion I do attend Christian church (with my mother whenever she’s in country) and when I do, I go to Grace Bible Church. Not many “businesses” are run as well as I have seen this church being run and the brand management is truly professional. As a result the church is in excellent financial standing and growing very fast.

As all brands have challenges, so too does Grace. I think that the Grace brand has been built around what is currently the Grace Senior Brand Manager, Pastor Musa Sono – he truly is a gifted individual, people attend Grace to listen to him, I attend to listen to him. Now as the brand grows and more branches are opened the challenge will be to develop more “Pastor Musa’s” as he is intrinsically liked to the brand promise and cannot be at two places at once (well, with technology maybe he can).

With religion playing the role it does in world politics and as a result the world economy I think it would be very interesting to see where the top two religions Christianity & Islam would be placed if they were considered in the annual top 100 survey.

I will try to get Pastor Musa to share his views on the topic. Hopefully ill have better luck with the pastor than i had with Thebe Ikalafeng!

Top 100 Brands 2008 click here
Major reliions of the world click here

Much love, peace be with you. JK