An article on What Marketers can learn from Organized Religions! Organized Religions, right from time immemorial, have been able to attract 'religious consumers' and 'sell god' by virtually shaping every aspect of human behaviour. Religion is and always has been a personal commodity, packaged and sold the same way as other marketed goods and services. Religion relies on storytelling, meaning making, and a willingness of people to believe in what is intellectually unbelievable. Religions create meaning through myths, rituals, and practices. Religion is the acceptance of a belief system. Organized Religions have managed to create a product out of themselves. This paper identifies means through which product brands can evolve into religions by learning from the various successful religions of the world.

1. Religious
Branding
What Marketers can learn from
Organized Religions!
Strategic Brand Management
ROHIT KULKARNI
PGPEX 47/11
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the paper are personal views of the author and presented
purely for educational purposes. The author does not intend to malign, demean or discredit any
religion or religious belief or hurt anybody’s religious sentiments. The author respects the
Fundamental Right to Freedom of Religion in India whilst drawing attention to the Right to
Freedom of Speech & Expression.

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Introduction
Organized Religions, right from time immemorial, have been able to attract 'religious consumers'
and 'sell god' by virtually shaping every aspect of human behavior. Religion is and always has
been a personal commodity, packaged and sold the same way as other marketed goods and
services. Religion relies on storytelling, meaning making, and a willingness of people to believe
in what is intellectually unbelievable. Religions create meaning through myths, rituals, and
practices. Religion is the acceptance of a belief system. Organized Religions have managed to
create a product out of themselves. This paper identifies means through which product brands
can evolve into religions by learning from the various successful religions of the world.
Branding
David Ogilvy, known as the father of advertising and founder of Ogilvy & Mather, defines brands
as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its
reputation and the way it is advertised.” Branding is about making meaning—taking the individual
aspects of a product and turning them into more than the sum of their parts. It is about giving
consumers something to think and feel about a product or service beyond its physical attributes.
It’s about fulfilling a need. However, it is always the brand and not the physical product that the
consumer develops the relationship with.
Lee Clow, creator of Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, states: “Brands aren’t just a way of
remembering what you want to buy any more. They’ve become part of the fabric of our society.
Brands are part of our system of ordering things—they even create context about who we are and
how we live. Brands have become badges for people. They articulate who you are and what your
values are.” If we compare this with what organized religion of the world stand for, we can see
that there is not much of a difference between the two. These religions have created meaning for
people’s lives over the centuries, just as brand managers seek to create a meaning out of their
products that can relate to people’s lives.
This study is broadly divided into four sections – key learnings from Religions that can be used
by marketers in their branding efforts.

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1. Core Beliefs & Values
The essence of any religion lies in a set of beliefs and moral values. Some core values of major
world religions are given below –
Christianity – In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law.
(Jesus, Mathew 7:12)
Islam – Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself.
(Prophet Muhammad, Hadith)
Hinduism – Whenever dharma declines and the purpose of life is forgotten, I manifest myself on
earth. I am born in every age to protect the good, to destroy evil, and to reestablish dharma.
(Lord Krishna, Bhagwat Gita Ch 4 Verse 1-23)
Buddhism - If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows them like a never-
departing shadow.” (The Buddha, Dhammapada)
Judaism - I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, Blessed be His Name, knows all the deeds
of human beings and all their thoughts, as it is written, "Who fashioned the hearts of them all,
Who comprehends all their actions" (Psalms 33:15)
Each of these core values sound inherently good, worth adopting and even building our lives
around. Yet their origin although claimed as divine revelations or millennia-old discourse, are
nothing but the minds of clever writers and copywriters. Common to every religion is the belief in
a divine, benevolent, supreme being passing down the ultimate knowledge to the believers for
their salvation.
Brands of today can learn a lot from this. It is important to identify the brands
core values and belief system and then portray how the brand is using that
knowledge to uplift the lives of its consumers. An example of this is Amazon.
When Amazon purchased the Washington Post in 2013, Jeff Bezos, the CEO
of Amazon was portrayed as ‘Journalism Saviour’. On similar lines, Fortune
magazine recently depicted Bezos as the Hindu god Vishnu on its cover. Both
of them are carefully crafted brand building campaigns.
Steve Jobs too was regularly portrayed as saviour and hype created to
elevate his words to being equivalent to gospels. Stories about the
magnetic, larger-than-life founders of Amazon and Apple are were created
to provide a rich mythology that would draw consumers to these brands.

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2. Symbols and Rituals
Symbols
Every Organized Religion has a simple, easily identifiable, timeless,
relevant and yet memorable. These symbols are also easily reproducible
and very versatile, i.e. can be depicted in various media very easily.
Religions have manged to engrave these symbols in our everyday lives
through building architecture, through paintings and other artforms, and now through day-to-day
use products like television, bumper stickers and web sites. Religious symbolism provides an
additional means to communicate the underlying message of a religion via symbols, apart from
communication by words. They help in achieving the first qualification of any brand – Top of the
mind recall!
The first step towards generating a brand loyalty is getting into the top
of the mind recall set of the consumers. Brand Logos are a great way to
increase brand visibility and thereby increase brand awareness leading
ultimately to brand recall. Hence, these are the very characteristics that
should be taken under consideration while designing a brand logo.
These are the exact characteristics that should be kept in mind while designing a brand logo!
Rituals
Rituals are repeated behaviours that follow a script and possess symbolic meaning. Over
centuries, people have practiced religious rituals to mark rites of passage such as birth, boyhood,
adulthood, marriage, and death, to mark certain times of each year like the end of the harvest
season, to please divine powers, and to ward off misfortunes.
Rituals impose order and structure to our lives, and assure us about our place in the scheme of
things. Rituals thus impose upon us a compulsion to be part of this consumption of the commodity
called religion. Also, at times they make the whole consumption process fun, as in festivals.
This could be another learning for brands to involve the consumers in symbolic rituals that make
the consumption of the product desirable and fun.

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Few brands have actually implemented a similar strategy. For instance,
Oreo’s Twist-Lick-Dunk ritual aims to popularise a particular way of
eating the biscuits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe6lBGO6OSk
Volkswagen encouraged its customers to participate in the “VW wave” -
waving to fellow VW Beetle drivers to say hello and signal solidarity.
These rituals provide some of the same benefits as religious rituals do and is a great way to
heighten their enjoyment with the ultimate goal of building a strong brand.
3. Story Telling
Many believe that religion was invented by human beings to tell the story of the powers that run
the universe and to make sense of the various puzzling phenomena happening around them
before science gave any answers. This intimate relationship between religion and storytelling
allowed the stories to be passed through generations and stay alive in our collective conscience.
These stories come with a lesson, experience, or some entertainment, and usually with an
element of surprise and they inspire people, thus enabling the marketers to connect with the
audience and give them something to think about.
Today, some religions have more followers than others; although there could be several political
factors affecting this, a major non-political factor is the robustness of the story telling! For example,
while both Taoism and Hinduism have survived a long time, there are only 173 million people on
earth today who are affiliated to Taoism, whereas Hinduism commands a following of more than
1 billion people, third only to Christianity (2.2 Billion) and Islam (1.6 Billion).
Also, every story needs a story teller. These narratives still survive today thanks to these religious
story tellers or marketing and sales mangers aka Priests, Babas, Prophets, Saints, Pujaris,
Imams, Rabbis, Monks, etc. Christianity would have never survived without the Twelve Apostles
of Jesus inspiring the masses into following the word of Christ. Without the stories of The Puranas
and The Upanishads, present day Hindus would not have related to the complex ideas presented
in the Vedas.

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Brands today, are trying to emulate this concept of storytelling through brand stories. A brand
story inspires people and they share it onwards within their sphere of influence. The story plays
out for a longer time among the masses because it touches on more than one of the facets of
storytelling – inspiration, emotions, and entertainment. Hence it isn’t just what the brand tells its
audience, it’s also about what the audience perceives that the brand is trying to say.
A few examples of Brands that have been successful in learning from organized religions and
create their own brand folklore –
Toms Shoes - http://www.toms.com/about-toms#companyInfo
The Toms Story - Founder Blake Mycoskie “witnessed the hardships faced
by children growing up without shoes” while traveling in Argentina in 2006.
“Wanting to help, he created Toms Shoes, a company that would match
every pair of shoes purchased with a new pair of shoes for a child in need,”
Coffee Board of India (Coffee Karma) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpYCgU5K6nw
The big idea - NURTURE THE SEED, SAVOUR THE CUP. In other words, do
good to the seed and the cup will do good to you! The concept of Karma is truly
rooted in Indian soil. Coffee Karma is this divine pattern that percolates through
the various facets of Indian coffee growing – when we put love, faith and passion
into growing coffees, we get coffees that instil similar feelings in the cup. A
journey of promising seed to fulfilling cup through the 7 laws of karma,
unravelled the symbiotic relation between nature and man.
4. Building a Community
Through the ages, religious life and social life went hand in hand. People belonged to the same
religious congregation their entire lives, and relied on fellow members for companionship, financial
assistance, and social support. The found their friends, well-wishers, and spouse, and socialized
their children there. Building communities and relationships amongst consumers thus has always
been an important factor in the successful branding of organized religions across the globe.
Today, product brands need to emulate this by creating communities, fan clubs, and social
networks. A few examples of brands who have successfully adopted this model –

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Harley Davidson - Many motorcycle enthusiasts spend
their weekends and vacations with their Harley Owners
Group at rides and rallies.
Chelsea FC - Chelsea Supporters Trust
A non-profit making Supporters Trust, with membership open to
all Chelsea Football Club supporters worldwide; it aims to
actively and professionally engage with all relevant stakeholders
on matters of interest and concern to Chelsea supporters.
These communities bring together customers for enjoyable and educational experiences, through
various avenues provided and managed by brand. Consumer socialize, form friendships, and
even romantic relationships.
Conclusion
Mara Einstein, in her book called Brands of Faith, remarks that, ‘as the ancients saw nature as
the ultimate sacred power and worshiped it in all of its various expressions, so we today see the
economy as the sacred power of our culture and worship it in an even wider array of
manifestations.’ As religions consumers we participate in rituals and routines at temples,
mosques, churches or Gurudwaras. Similarly, as product consumers we participate in rituals while
shopping at malls, department stores and now online through e-commerce websites.
The similarity in the consumer behaviour, thus mandates that brands today study and learn from
the marketing and brand building practices that have been followed by these religions since time
immemorable in order to build long lasting and successful brands.

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Bibliography
▪ Jean-Claude Usunier & Jörg Stolz, Religions as Brands: New Perspectives on the
Marketization of Religion and Spirituality
▪ Utpal M. Dholakia, Brands Are Behaving Like Organized Religions, HBR (Feb 18, 2016)
▪ Mara Einstein, Brands of Faith
▪ Rishabh D., What We Can Learn from Religion About Brand Storytelling (Social Samosa)