Brands of Faith

Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age

Mara Einstein

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781134130092
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Advertising
• Index: Business

In a society overrun by commercial clutter, religion has become yet another product sold in the consumer marketplace, and faiths of all kinds must compete with a myriad of more entertaining and more convenient leisure activities. Brands of Faith argues that in order to compete effectively faiths have had to become brands – easily recognizable symbols and spokespeople with whom religious prospects can make immediate connections

Mara Einstein shows how religious branding has expanded over the past twenty years to create a blended world of commerce and faith where the sacred becomes secular and the secular sacred. In a series of fascinating case studies of faith brands, she explores the significance of branded church courses, such as Alpha and The Purpose Driven Life, mega-churches, and the popularity of the televangelist Joel Olsteen and television presenter Oprah Winfrey, as well as the rise of Kaballah. She asks what the consequences of this religious marketing will be, and outlines the possible results of religious commercialism – good and bad. Repackaging religion – updating music, creating teen-targeted bibles – is justifiable and necessary. However, when the content becomes obscured, religion may lose its unique selling proposition – the very ability to raise us above the market.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was the surprise box office hit of 2004. Generating in its first year more than $370 million in domestic revenue, the movie went on to garner more than $600 million from theater attendance revenues and another $400 million in DVD sales. Who could have guessed that a movie about the horribly torturous final 12 hours of the life of Jesus, told in Aramaic and Latin, would become one of the top ten box office hits of all time? Evidently Mel Gibson knew because he was willing to risk $30 million of his own money to fund this picture when no one else would touch it.

Was it simply the brilliance of this cinematic masterpiece that fueled attendance and the subsequent purchasing of Passion products? Was it the driving hunger of the majority of Americans to see the last hours of their savior portrayed so vividly on the screen?

Actually it was neither of these things. What got moviegoers into the theaters was, quite simply, marketing. Advertising, sales promotion, and ubiquitous publicity are what got people off their couches on a Friday night and into the local multiplex. But unlike other mediocre Hollywood films, The Passion had several elements that enhanced its box office potential: an A-list movie star as director and spokesperson, a story with a built-in audience, and a topic—religion—that readily lends itself to controversy.

At first the controversy revolved around whether The Passion was anti-Semitic. That controversy was initiated and then exacerbated by the film’s producers for months before the film’s release. Leading up to the movie’s opening on Ash Wednesday (a brilliant marketing idea—getting people to see a movie about Jesus on a day when they are most likely to be thinking about him anyway), news outlets ran stories about rabbis going to see the movie, priests going to see the movie, and pastors going to see the movie, and after having viewed the film, their providing commentary on who thought what parts of it were anti-Semitic. Of course this “debate” fueled desire to see the film on the part of ordinary citizens, so that they, too, could make an assessment of the film. Also, by framing the controversy as anti-Semitic, the producers opened up the film to a new market—Jews—an audience that would likely have otherwise avoided the film altogether.

As this controversy began to die down, a new one appeared. This latter controversy became a question as to whether Mel Gibson himself was anti-Semitic. Mr. Gibson’s personal religious beliefs are based in strict pre-Vatican II Catholicism and are therefore ultraconservative. The extent of his conservatism and possible anti-Semitism was fueled by stories about Gibson’s father, who was widely reported as being anti-Semitic (he claimed that the Holocaust was mostly fiction) and was believed to have passed those beliefs down to his son. This, too, got considerable airtime leading up to the movie’s release, particularly from conservative television and radio hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.

Of course this was not the only publicity associated with the film. There were stories about Mel Gibson funding the movie himself. There were stories about how true to the Gospels the movie was. There were the typical stories about the making of the film. In sum, the publicity machine was humming in full force right up to the opening day.¹

This free publicity, which was valued in the millions of dollars, was supplemented by other traditional film marketing elements. For example, there were e-mails from Amazon.com promoting the movie to anyone who had purchased religious or spiritual books, there were appearances by Mr. Gibson on a number of television talk shows and newsmagazines, and there were the typical commercials on television and ads in local newspapers.

However it was the marketing that most people did not see that drove the ultimate success of The Passion. Grassroots marketing, led by Gibson himself, was developed in conjunction with local churches throughout the country. Evangelicals, charismatics, and Roman Catholics were the target markets for this film. Thirty invitation-only screenings were held for high-level church leaders and the heads of prominent evangelical organizations. The first of these occurred in Colorado Springs, Colorado, home of many of these institutions, including the ultraconservative Focus on the Family run by James C. Dobson. The leaders of these organizations, and many others, were encouraged to purchase blocks of tickets for their institutions and to suggest that the local churches do the same. More than $3 million in advanced tickets sales were generated through this campaign.

After these private screenings, marketing materials were presented to churches through Outreach, Inc., a California-based organization that specializes in Christian marketing. Audience members were offered “door hangers, invitation cards, church bulletin inserts, Bible excerpts and study guides. In addition, in keeping with the latest trends in technology, over 250,000 DVD’s about the film were mailed to minister’s nationwide” (Caldwell, 2004, quoted in Maresco, 2004). There were also millions of witness cards promoting the film on one side and providing an evangelical message on the other that were distributed and used by thousands of churches and religious organizations (Howard, 2004).

These church promotions began in December 2003—a full two months before the movie opened. The “Pastors’ Action Kit” provided churches with information via the Internet (www.passionmaterials.com) on how to tie into The Passion. Promotional ideas included showing trailers of the film at church, putting up banners, inviting parishioners to attend a screening, and, of course, buying out an entire theater screening and taking the congregation. Sermon suggestions corresponded with the Christian calendar, and information about what aspects of the movie to discuss in relationship to these sermons was provided.² There were also special materials targeted to the teen audience via church youth groups; Teen Mania sponsored a site that provided a DVD set to aid youth workers in running “a four-week curriculum leading up to the movie, a guide to the outreach itself, and a two-week post-outreach curriculum” (Sheahen, 2004a).

Churches were also given commercials that they could customize to tie the movie into their local church. Specifically what this meant was that a commercial was created with the first 20 seconds being footage from the movie while the last 10 seconds were left blank to be used to promote the local church. Someone seeing the commercial on television would see 20 seconds of trailer for The Passion and be pulled in thinking they are watching a commercial for the movie, and in the last 10 seconds they would be presented with information about attending the local church. From a marketing perspective it was a win–win—more exposure for the movie (paid for by the local church), and the local church gets to be connected with a major Hollywood hit.

Just as with secular films, ancillary products were created in conjunction with the movie’s release. These products included book tie-ins and coffee mugs like other Hollywood fare, but they also included crosses and—one of the most popular items—small and large pewter nail pendants on a leather string, which retailed for between $12.99 and $16.99. As with most major motion pictures, a soundtrack was created. The Passion soundtrack sold 50,000 units the day it was released, making it the third highest selling first-day soundtrack. Initially this product, as with others associated with the film, was distributed primarily through traditional Christian bookstores. However, products were distributed more widely as the success of the film translated beyond the initial narrowly targeted groups.

From movie tickets to books to jewelry, all things Passion flew off store shelves. The repercussions of this marketing miracle continue to be felt in the religious publishing and products industry years later. This is true not just for Passion products, but also for all categories of religious products and services. More spiritual books of all types were sold. Crosses, spikes, even Jesus refrigerator magnets grew in popularity in response to this cultural phenomenon.

Why was The Passion important?

The Passion of the Christ showed in the most blatant of ways that religion is a product, no different from any other commodity sold in the consumer marketplace. The Passion started with a defined target audience, created secondary targets through promotion and publicity, and perpetuated the product’s relevance through creating ancillary businesses. And while initially the objective was to sell a film, we can see from the sustaining campaigns and comments made by the director that the ultimate objective was to promote religion itself.

Another reason why The Passion was important is that it furthered the notion that while religious practice is very much privatized, religious presentation and promotion has become widely acceptable within our culture. Many forms of religion are being advertised and promoted in a way never seen before. Churches advertise on billboards and in print media. Books sell us all types of religious and spiritual wisdom. Television has become overrun with religious content with no fewer than eight channels presenting sermons and faith-based programming 24 hours a day, not to mention religious content in broadcast prime time and as regular content for nightly newsmagazines.

While the intensity of religious messages is new, marketing religion is not (Finke and Iannaccone, 1993; Moore, 1994). It has been going on for centuries. When Gutenberg invented the printing press in the fifteenth century, for example, much of the early advertising was to sell Bibles. In America the need for religious marketing stemmed from the First Amendment right to freedom of religion, something the Founding Fathers believed was fundamental to the establishment of the democracy. Choosing one’s religion was as important a right as freedom of speech or the right to petition the government against grievances. Establishing no state religion meant that people would be free to choose how to worship, or not to worship. With no state-mandated religion, religions had to compete for parishioners and oftentimes that meant using marketing techniques, from simple print advertising to door-to-door salesmen, as evidenced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.³

However, competing in the religious marketplace was simple in simpler times. For centuries new Americans brought religion with them from their home countries and passed that religion down from generation to generation. If Mom and Dad went to the Baptist church around the corner, so did you. Not only were religions carried across the sea, but also traditions. Weekly church attendance, Sunday dinners with the family, and singing in the church choir were all part and parcel of a simple religious life. Houses of worship carried significance in the communities where they served because they were a place for community as well as a place for worship. Going to church was not only about God, but also about making social connections. Churches were able to maintain their value and their numbers because social agents— family, work, and even the congregation itself—supported remaining in a single faith throughout one’s lifetime.

This began to change as American society moved from agrarian to industrial. First, the opportunities to connect with other people presented themselves as part of daily life, particularly through one’s place of business, thus usurping the church’s monopoly on community building. Second, as the baby boom generation came of age in the 1960s, children rebelled against the older generation in myriad ways including rejecting the faith of their parents. The flexibility to choose one’s faith combined with reduced social stigma attached to not attending services meant that churches were no longer ensured a congregation. Finally, increasingly more sophisticated communications technologies—first the radio and then television and the Internet—provided alternative forms of communication that could be used for connecting with others as well as a means for distributing religious content. The church was no longer the only source of religious information—and in fact has become the least convenient one—and thus continued to erode in value.

This is not to say that religion or spirituality has diminished in acceptance. America is one of the most religious countries in the world, certainly the most religious industrialized country. Poll after poll touts the fact that 90 percent or more of Americans believe in some form of higher power, whether it is God, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, or some other lesser known entity (though almost 75 percent claim to be Christian according to Simmons Marketing Research [2004, p. 124]). A 2003 Harris Interactive poll “found that 79% of Americans believe there is a God, and that 66% are absolutely certain this is true” (Harris Interactive, 2003). In the same survey, researchers learned that 9 percent of Americans do not believe in God and 12 percent aren’t sure.

Not only are Americans religious, or spiritual as some prefer to call it, but we readily buy products and services that relate to our faith. We do this because, as mentioned earlier, traditional religious institutions are not the primary source of spiritual sustenance for most people anymore. While nearly eight out of ten Americans claim belief in a higher power, only one out of three attends religious services on a regular basis. Specifically, only 36 percent of Americans go to church or synagogue regularly—that is, at least once a month—even though close to 80 percent believe in God. Doing the math, that means more than 60 percent of Americans get their faith from something other than a religious institution. People attend movies, read books, and participate in religious chat rooms, all of which are diminishing religious bodies’ direct influence on religious consumers. Instead of going to church, we wear T-shirts with WWJD (What would Jesus do?) or Jewcy emblazoned on our chests. We buy Christian rock albums and New Age crystals. In fact we spend more on religious/spiritual/ self-help books than any other country, which makes total sense given the size of the target market (79 percent of Americans), our faith beliefs, and our consumerist culture.

All of this is to say that religion as practiced in the United States is an autonomous, self-oriented religion. This individualized religious practice, famously noted by Bellah and his colleagues in the mid-1980s, was called “Sheilahism,” named after a nurse who created her own form of religious practice (Bellah et al., 1985). Since that time other scholars have seen this pastiche of religious practice as a continuing trend (Cimino and Lattin, 1998; Roof, 1993b, 1999). More recently this “cafeteria religion” is believed to be increasingly fueled by a commodity culture (Carrette and King, 2005; Miller, 2004).

In 2003, research estimates put the market for religious publishing and products at $6.8 billion and growing at a rate of nearly 5 percent annually. This market is subdivided into three categories: books (the largest segment, with $3.5 billion in sales and a 7 percent growth rate); stationary/giftware/ merchandise (sales at $1.4 billion and a 4.5 percent growth rate); and audio/ video/software ($1.4 billion in sales and flat). Given the current interest in religious products which continues to be fueled by The Passion, experts estimate that the market will grow at almost a 5 percent annual rate for at least the next three years, reaching $8.64 billion in sales (Seybert, 2004, p. 50).

But even this...

Table of contents

• Religion, Media and Culture series
• Contents
• Series editors’ preface
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Chapter 2 The changing religious marketplace
• Chapter 3 The business of religion
• Chapter 4 Branding faith
• Chapter 5 The course to God
• Chapter 6 The new televangelists
• Chapter 7 Kabbalah
• Chapter 8 The politics of faith brands
• Chapter 9 Has religious marketing gone too far?
• Notes
• References
• Index