The Bra nd G ap

Finishing up a great book called The Brand Gap. Anyone that knows me knows I’m pretty passionate about the contextual side of ministry – we’ve been entrusted with the most important message humankind could ever hear, why do we so often fall short in how we communicate that message. I think for many years the church has viewed marketing as a deceitful practice, almost defining it as trying to get me to believe something about a product or service that isn’t true so that I’ll get suckered into buying it. I think in political terms that’s generally referred to as spin. True marketing on the other hand helps me, the consumer who lives in an age of information overload with less time to devote to anything, understand the essence and core value of a product or service. Marketing has to start with substance and content – it must start with what is true if it’s going to be effective in the longterm due to the fact that many times buying decisions are about trust and relationships… think about it for a second why do you buy from the stores you do or why do you buy the products you do? Probably because in an age of information overload when you have less time to devote to anything you probably have some sort of trusted relationship with the brand… Point being, marketing and brand development isn’t about deceit, but rather trust. Sounds strangely like something the church is trying to do with a lost world (remember one of my core values is that the church isn’t here for you and I, we are the church and we’re here for the world). That being the case we’re trying to build bridges of trust with people, a community and our culture. Marketing (the contextual side of ministry,) helps us do that. It helps communicate – in a language people understand – the truth and value of the message as it applies to their lives…

So now that I’ve gotten that little rant out there, back to the Brand Gap – Neumeier makes a great point, “Cognitive expert Edward de Bono once advised marketers that, instead of building a brand on USP (the unique selling proposition of a product), they should pay more attention to the “UBS” (the unique buying state of their customers)…” Well said Marty Neumeier. As a group of people (the church) with the most life changing message a person could ever hear we need to be committed to understanding the “UBS” of those we’re trying to reach and find language (design, presentation etc) that makes sense to the people we’re communicating with… The contextual side of ministry is about building trusted relationships (we also need to make sure we are who we say we are so when people do engage they get what they paid for (that’s a cost of discipleship message there). Who are you reaching? What would you say their “UBS” is?