Let’s consider a faith-based example. Many parishes have a Eucharistic Adoration ministry. Have you ever talked to people who run that ministry at their parish? Typically, you will find that they absolutely love it — they love spending that quiet time with Christ in prayer. Many who have regular adoration times find these to be “no-skip” events. For those who have never participated in adoration, though, the excitement is much less clear. Often they simply don’t understand. What do you do for an entire hour? Adoration is a simple example of this critical point in marketing. Those who participate absolutely love it. Those who do not participate do not understand it. We can talk about adoration for hours, but until you attend it yourself, you will never love it as much as someone who has already made it part of his or her life.
In St. Louis, there is a beautiful Carmelite monastery that has become an introduction to Eucharistic Adoration for many local Catholics. There, the Blessed Sacrament is exposed throughout each day, and people in the community are invited to stop by, if even for a minute or two. This gentle invitation encourages many to fall in love with adoration.
When it comes to your ministry, organization, or parish, do not worry if no one else loves it as you do quite yet. Stay true to your brand, stay consistent, and build it faithfully. If you are true to your brand and what it has to offer, people will come looking for it. Don’t assume that people know and love it; invite them in slowly, interest them in the potential, and gently lead them. They may never love it as you do, but they will certainly need and appreciate it, and it will delight their hearts.
For Reflection
How can you share God’s liberating love with those you care about without being pushy or overly dogmatic?
What is your response when someone is uninterested in pursuing spiritual growth or being on board with your mission?
1. Mathew Sweezey, “The Future of Marketing 2016: New Roles and Trends,” Infinite Noise, November 30, 2015, https://www.slideshare.net/MathewSweezey/the-future-of-marketing-2016-new-roles-tools-and-trends/15-InfiniteNoiseYankelovich_a_market_researchfirm_estimates
Truth 4
Everyone Needs to Own the Brand
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”
— 1 CORINTHIANS 12:12
All too often, organizations have a sense that the brand is owned by one person or team — usually the marketing or communications team. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone in an organization has responsibility for the brand. Just as many parts make up one body, so all elements of an organization are part of the brand.
The reality that everyone owns the brand can be a very difficult concept. It does not mean that everyone is allowed to direct the brand; that truly needs to exist with marketing or communications. However, all members of an organization need to be committed to understanding the brand and delivering the brand message for their particular department. Organizations are used to having separate departments with a unique focus, such as finance, legal, human resources, operations, etc. However, every single one of these departments plays a role in communicating the company’s brand.
An example of a brand that demonstrates well what happens when everyone owns the brand is Southwest Airlines. If you fly Southwest, you have probably heard a flight attendant sing or tell jokes to you over the plane’s speaker. Most likely, the flight attendant understood the Southwest brand well enough to know that singing that particular ditty was a good thing to do. In other words, no one told the flight attendant to sing on Flight 2369 that morning. Instead, the flight attendant knows how to be a living example of the Southwest brand.
The reverse is true as well. I once worked with a pharmacy organization, and I couldn’t understand why the pharmacists (the company’s customers) were so vitriolic when speaking about the pharmacy corporation. I asked the pharmacists why they had such a strong reaction, and several complained about accounting. “Have you seen the notices they send us?” I looked at the accounting practices and, sure enough, the language was rough, coarse, and even mean. The pharmacy brand was about providing comforting support. These notices were inconsistent with what the brand claimed to stand for, and this was exceptionally irritating to the pharmacists. I worked with accounting to change the language in all the notices they sent to be consistent with the values of the brand. Over time, the pharmacists were no longer offended and became strong proponents of the brand.
A Catholic organization that takes brand seriously is the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. FOCUS trains young men and women just out of college to be missionaries on university campuses. One thing that will strike you when you meet a FOCUS missionary is his or her deep joy. Every single one of them demonstrates joy from faith, from God, and from this gift of life. Joy is hard to teach, as are many values and attitudes. FOCUS missionaries are hired in part for this attitude, as well as for their deep faith.
To hire for an attitude, you have to know what attitude or value you are seeking, which is where understanding your brand comes into play. FOCUS understands a few things about its brand:
1. Joy is central to the expression of the Catholic faith and, therefore, central to the role of their missionaries.
2. Members of FOCUS communicate the FOCUS brand and the call of the Gospel in how they approach and live their lives.
FOCUS recognizes that everyone in the organization plays a role in owning and expressing the brand. Each member of the organization is a part of the same body. At the same time, they recognize that their organization is part of the Body of Christ.
For Reflection
How do you express brand ownership as a member of the Body of Christ?
Do you see yourself as having an integral role in promoting the brand, especially if you work for a faith-based organization? Or do you sit back and let others lead the charge?
Truth 5
To Communicate Well, Less is More
“Better is a little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked.”
— PSALM 37:16
Have you ever wondered whether you should just do more when it comes to communications? If only you posted more on social media, sent more email marketing, planned more fundraising, more advertising, more promotions, more, more, more. It doesn’t help that our society tells us that “more” is the answer to everything.
But what if I told you that the answer to achieving success is actually communicating less? It’s true. When it comes to marketing, less is often more — much more. The problem with always doing more, more, more in communications is confusion and lack of focus. It is better to do a few things really well than many things poorly.
We see this in the business world quite a bit. Companies do well and then think their opportunity for further growth is to market differently or to communicate new messages. The secular world abounds with companies that, in the course of trying to communicate more, simply did damage to an already strong brand. Yahoo tried to redesign its logo in 2013 to freshen up the brand. They spent thirty days introducing various new logo options to their followers until the big unveiling of the new logo. An audible sigh went