The Essence of Branding
By: Richard Reising

The origins of the concept of branding are simple. Shape a piece of iron, put it in a fire and shove it onto the hide of your livestock. It is a by-product of sweat, fire and pain, but it yields an indelible impression—a lasting mark that creates a sense of belonging and sets one apart.

Over time, successful branding has become a lot more complex. You cannot simply slap a logo on something and expect it to give everyone a sense of who you are. People receive such massive amounts of communication that just rubber-stamping your materials with your name is not enough to create a vivid and memorable image in their minds.

Today, branding is not just design. It is not just a logo. It is not letterhead. It is the sum perception you create in the minds of those with whom you are trying to connect. Design plays a part; communication plays a part; culture plays a part; and the target audience sets the plumb line.

One of our marketing giants, Nike, is known for exemplifying the essence of branding. In their heyday, back in the early 1990s, they employed more than 275 graphic designers on their staff—the largest in-house design department ever established. But isn’t it funny that with all those designers, you never saw one thing come from them that you did not suspect was from Nike before you saw the famous swoosh? Why is that? It is because Nike had such a tightly defined, well-ingrained sense of self that their designers soon learned that individual creativity was useless if it did not fit the definition of the Nike brand.

This concept has been the cornerstone of the world’s greatest brands, especially over the last 20 years. You see an ad, and you know whose it is before the company is mentioned—why is that? It is because they are executing their marketing strategy based on their effectively defined “self.” They are differentiating themselves from others and providing an essence that draws those who favor their brand into a deeper sense of belonging.

Think about it. When was the last time you mistook a McDonald’s coffee cup for a Starbucks? You haven’t. They have their own brands—their own looks, their own color schemes, their own styles, their own atmospheres and cultures—and they have been successful in communicating them to the public.

Corporate players as well as smart local businesses have learned that in today’s media-saturated world, inconsistency does not work. Having a variety of logos, multitudes of fonts, and general inconsistency in communication is considered schizophrenic, hokey and unprofessional. Studies show that people are required to see something five to seven times before they begin to distinguish its source. Our need for repetition is a result of media overload.

If your church is not consistent, you run the risk of never connecting with your audience. Your multiple efforts might be perceived as coming from entirely different sources. Advertising agencies frequently follow up new commercials with surveys asking people what they had seen. A common trend is that a viewer can recall a specific commercial but attribute it to a different company in the same market. People generally attribute indistinguishable advertising to categorical leaders. This might mean that if the big church also sends out direct mail and yours is not distinguishingly different, you might be inadvertently advertising for them even though your church name is on it.

Why do very few churches actually embrace consistency in communications, even though they see it utilized successfully by the corporate world all around them? After all, one would reason that using common imagery, design and communication elements should save time and resources. Designers and administrative staff should be able to leverage aspects of a consistent brand identity without having to start from scratch on each project. So why don’t churches do that?

Many churches simply do not see it clearly. They do not have a strong enough sense of what they are and where they are going to make the commitment to consistency from the outset. It takes setting your sails hard. It is the commitment to make decisions with both short-term and long-term goals in mind and intact.

The essence of branding is being deliberate. The cornerstone of being deliberate is knowing what you are and where you are going. Jesus set his eyes as flint toward Jerusalem; Paul was destined and determined to go to Rome. When a church sends out an unplanned, untargeted direct-mail piece, the potential for a positive response is limited to those who are already in a “try-out” mode for a church. For anyone else, the impact is often fleeting—missing out on the opportunity to foster a clear identity and connect with recipients over time. The foundation of being deliberate is defining purpose in everything you do. Utilizing the same purpose over time creates brand.

Branding is essentially a highly concentrated use of communication. It has only one downside. To the extent a well-crafted brand can assist in growth, an un-strategic or even poorly aimed brand can keep people away and even disassociate your members.

It seems to be the default for churches to think their need in brand development is to be cutting edge. In every community that has churches vying for that position, usually only one or two ever get perceived that way, and the others that try just end up looking like wanna-bes. Remember, the cutting edge is the first part of the knife to dull.

As a case in point, I recently had a consulting meeting with a department of one of the largest churches in the nation. They had direction. They had passion. They had a considerable budget. They had some of the greatest people in the world. They even had a defined plan of action—a cutting-edge one that was consistent with some other leading churches with whom they were in close communication.

As is the case in all of our meetings, we began to dissect the plan through perception management. We endeavored to understand what the church’s community thought of them. We began by analyzing the deep-rooted thoughts of their community. By breaking it down, they realized that the millions they were about to spend on a specific campaign and building plan would result only in reinforcing the negative feelings that kept people out of their church. Every original instinct they had was natural. After all, it had worked for the other churches. In their case, it took introspection and lingering with the masses to understand how to aim their building funds in a way that would benefit their current membership and create grounds for rebuilding ties with those in the community with whom they had become disconnected.

Developing a strong brand that truly works means taking into consideration all the things we have discussed thus far. It is not the job of a designer, a creative team or even the communications department. It is the job of the church leadership team. A designer, a creative team and a communications department are critical (if you have them) in carrying out a strategy, but determining the definition of self and setting the vision must come from the very top. If the pastor and leadership team are not championing this communication effort, do not expect it to fly. No one has a stronger sense of what Microsoft is than Bill Gates or what Apple is than Steve Jobs. The highest leader must be the crusader for the integrity of the brand. He or she must embody it and train the people to reflect it.

The essence of branding is communicating the essence of who you are in all you do.

Richard Reising is the author of Church Marketing 101: Preparing Your Church for Greater Growth, from which this article is adapted. Reising is the founder and president of Artistry Marketing Concepts, www.artistrymarketing.com. Used with permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

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