Lesson 6: Appeal to Accepted Traditions & Tastes
What does Jesus have to do with a Shamrock or Mary have to do with Guadalupe?
In developing its brand over the years, the Catholic Church has done an excellent job of appealing to (some would say co-opting) local legends and long-standing traditions, and refocusing them on key points of the Church's teaching. While the Catholic Church is rife with many examples, perhaps the most profound is the celebration of Christmas on December 25. The exact date of Jesus' birth remains a mystery, although the references to shepherds herding their sheep seems to indicate that the birth was in the summer or fall. In AD 350, Pope Julius I declared that Christmas would be celebrated on December 25. Why that date? Because it corresponded with an event celebrated by many established religions, the winter solstice. By taking an existing holiday and inculcating it with Christianity's message, the church was able to greatly extend the reach of its brand.
When developing a brand for your company or organization, you should not try to bulldoze existing brands or beliefs, but rather you should focus on how to promote your message while complementing or appealing to those things that the audience already finds comfort in.
posted by M. Scott Laemmle @ 9:23 PM
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1 Comments:
An interesting modern day dimension to this idea of co-opting an existing, well established brand is that new mediums, particulary the Internet, have made this much easier to accomplish. For example, Yahoo and other news aggregators could have developed their own news gathering teams when the terrain of portals was less clear, thus putting themselves in competition with the traditional wire services and television networks. However, they chose instead to leverage the power of the entrenched players and instead do what they do best: extending news content, side-by-side with its competition, to consumers in the form of My Yahoo and news.yahoo.com. While undoubtedly driven by resource constraints as well, Yahoo (and others) recognized that consumers have developed a trust with existing news brands. It took marketing managers with a good understanding of their core competencies to position the company and its products in this way. A similar shakeup is occurring in the syndication world today, driven by RSS and other technologies that leverage the global reach of the network and the large numbers of content producers (like yourself) flocking online. Good marketing (and product positioning) that appeals to traditions and tastes may help determine the winners and losers there, too.
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