Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld

Another good book by Twitchell. I found the chapters on universities the most revelatory, and his discussion of "Museumworld" resonates nicely with some of the things Michael Kammen says in Visual Shock.

The pervasiveness of the branded culture
15 May 2012

tThere seems to be a bit of a division with regards to opinions of this book, with some finding the content interesting while others claiming that it is shamelessly promoting the new age capitalist culture. Too be honest, we live in a branded culture, and modern branding is here to stay. That does not mean that I like or appreciate it, but we must accept it for what it is. I won't go into details of the history of the brand, but a brand is basically a story that is built around a product and it is the the story that sells, not the product. For instance, we have two tops, one is branded with, say Black Sabbath, the other has no brand. The attraction to the Black Sabbath T-shirt has more to do with wanting to be apart of the story that is Black Sabbath, to identify with it, where as a simple blank T-shirt carries no story with it. For instance, when I was in Rome, I saw somebody wearing a Pulp Fiction T-shirt and loved it so much that I spent the next four weeks looking for one. I finally found one in Amsterdam and immediately bought it and was wearing it the next day. Why? Well, because not only is the T-shirt is heaps cool but also because it allows me to identify with Pulp Fiction. It is why Nike can get away with selling overpriced t-shirts that do little more than advertise its brand without having to pay somebody to wear it. By encouraging people it embrace and identify with the story that is the brand allows the company to advertise itself without actually having to pay for it.
tTwitchell looks at three institutions in his book: the church, the university, and the museum. The reason for this is that these three institutions are not traditionally connected with marketing, or even branding, but, as we read through his book, we suddenly come to realise how false this assumption really is. The church that Twitchell focuses on in his book is Willow Creek Church in Illinois, though the same can be said of many of the mega-churches across the United States, and even throughout the world (even though there are no true Mega-churches here in Australia). I used to go to a church that had been caught up in the branded-culture in that it is a member of a major Christian denomination, but it over the years has slowly been distancing itself from this denomination and creating its own brand and it does this through opening up branches around the city, holding seminars, camps, and training days through the year all the while promoting its brand. While the church is nowhere as large as churches like Willow Creek, we can see how it is beginning to develop and create its brand, and in the years before I left I even began to see it developing and producing its own bible studies.
tNow, as a Christian, and a dedicated one at that (though I do hear objections being raised by that statement) I do have some serious concerns regarding this change in attitude. In a way, the criticism I have with regards to turning a church into a brand can similarly be targeted at universities and at museums. In that regard I am a traditionalist, with universities being institutions for learning aimed at learning for the sake of knowledge as opposed to learning for the sake of earning an income. The same with Museums as I go to Museums for what they have in the Museum and what I can learn from its exhibits as opposed to being connected to a brand. Okay, the museums that I visited in Europe tended to be targeted at specific disciplines, such as the Archeological Museum of Athens. The Vatican Museum is similar in that it is simply an extension of the Catholic brand, but in another way, it is just a means to show of all of the treasures it has collected (or stolen) through the ages (though quite a few of the objects in the museum, such as the paintings by Raphael, and the Sistine Chapel, were created for the Vatican). The Louvre and the British Museum are institutions in and of themselves, though once again the British Museum is a museum that mostly contains ancient anthropological collections, while the Louvre is just a collection of stuff (though I will admit that I did love the Louvre).
tIt is a shame that universities are shifting away from institutions of learning to simply advanced vocational institutions. However I suspect that it has a lot to do with attracting the best and the brightest through their doors, so that they can train and educate them and the release them into the working world to make an impact. It is this impact that the University wants because by attending the university, paying your tuition, and then going out to the world, you have taken on board the University's brand. Having the degree from a branded university is much more important than having a degree. For instance, if we have two people, both as smart and as adept as each other, but one has a degree from Kentucky State, while the other has a degree from Yale, when they go for that same job, in many cases (and I am not trying to be overtly broad here since there are a lot of other factors that go into obtaining a job) the Yale degree will be chosen over the Kentucky State degree.
tNow, I was going to discuss my concerns with the church, though I have outlined it above to an extent. In a way, Christianity, and indeed the church, should not be defined by a brand, but by the gospel (and it is a shame that many of the worse perpetrators are completely blind to it). Remember that the brand is a story and taking the brand on board means that we want to be a part of that story. Therefore, a branded church creates a story that helps people identify with that church. However, with two churches, one branded, the other unbranded, that have the same doctrinal beliefs, should there be any difference. No, there shouldn't, because the gospel is the same no matter what, and just because you go to a branded church, and indeed are a leader in a branded church, does not mean that you are any different, or any better, to a person in the same position in an unbranded church. In a way, it is just a matter of perspective, and my belief is that the perspective can be quite dangerous.
tThe reason that I say that is that brands tend to be competitive. Take Coke and Pepsi for instance, or Google and Apple. Both have their loyal customers, and both are competing with the other to get customers to switch sides. While all is fair in love and the marketplace, this should not be happening within our Christian communities. In fact, churches really shouldn't be poaching people for other churches, because in the long run, it starts to create an holier than thou attitude, especially when you start claiming that your doctrine is right while their doctrine is not. An old pastor of mine who ran a university ministry, saw the danger that this posed and would discourage university students from dropping out of their church and joining his church. It didn't necessarily work, because it all had to do with perception. All of the cool people went to his church, so by going to his church, one would be cool.
tLook, I have my brands that I subscribe to, but I must admit that it is not necessarily something that I really try to let dominate me. Football teams are a classic example, because when we follow a team we are subscribing to a brand. It is all well and good to go for Man-U since they always win, but what if you go for Bolton, or Swansea? You might subscribe to the brand, but you don't always win. However, let me suggest that being a Swansea supporter and seeing them win would probably give you a lot more joy, than being a Man-U supporter and watching them win, again (oh, by the way, I'm an Arsenal supporter, though I must admit that I don't own any Arsenal gear).

Twitchell's basic premise__that organizations live and die based on brand recognition__isn't new. In recent years, publishers have churned out dozens of marketing books trumpeting the importance of brand recognition. What sets Branded Nation apart is Twitchell's richly detailed examination of how religious, educational, and cultural institutions are jumping on the branding bandwagon. Twitchell, a University of Florida professor and the author of previous books on advertising and culture, takes a couple of lumps from critics who found some parts of his newest work reductive or incomplete. But overall, Twitchell's persuasive arguments and enviable story-telling ability make Branded Nation an enjoyable__and enlightening__read.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

I read this for school. I liked it, but I did hear about Twitchell being accused of plagiarism and that put a damper on my respect of him. He did get a bit ranty at moments. The one thing I remember most that pissed me off was his idea that people couldn't tell the difference between coke and pepsi, and even coke and sprite. Seriously!? Yeah, moments like those made me doubt some of what he said, but a lot of what he said was enlightening.

Well I was annoyed enough when I realized that this idiot's argument was that branding is basically the only way anyone can relate to anything anymore but that that's GREAT and a way to give "high culture" more of a "mass culture" appeal. It's like this guy synthesized Jameson and the Frankfurt School and took from it that yes, the market has saturated everything, but that that is actually a positive (Sometimes. He thinks the fact that it has happened to churches is kind of hilarious and good but he is noticeably pissy about the fact that it has also happened to his own university). And then he starts in with that bullshit about the market democritizing everything and making life fairer and blah blah blah. Anyway so I was tempted to quit reading then and there but I kept going for a bit because Twitchell is the king of non-sequiturs and mixed metaphors (and also sweeping generalizations or points that he doesn't back up at all, but that is less amusing).

To wit:

79: Desire often resides not internally but in the panic of others... such communicable panic may even be hardwired. In the mid-1980s, entomologists did a series of experiments with ants. Two food sources were placed equidistant from and on opposite sides of a nest... There was no reason for the ants to prefer one brand, so to speak, to the other. Logical economists would predict that the ants would divide the piles evenly... Instead, because ants can signal one another as to where food lies, the distribution fluctuated wildly... Follow the leader is no simple childhood game but a deeply installed herd behavior.

So human consumers "follow the leader" because of ant... herds? Herds of ants. Seriously. And I mean, I hate sociobiology as much as the next guy who hates sociobiology, but even if you're going to make an argument relying on that, maybe ants aren't the best starting point?

88: [Talking about megachurches:] In the world of fungible products, you don't capture market share without having to contend with the howls of those you displace. With the arrival of Wal-Mart come the cries of unfair, unfair. From whom? From Sears and J. C. Penney. And who howled when Sears and J. C. Penney... came to town? The downtown merchants... And who shouted "unfair" when the downtown merchants came? The corner store. And whom did the corner store displace? The door-to-door salesman, the drummer. In a strange sense, things have come full circle as the intependent megachurch pastor shares many similarities (independent, local boy responsible for his own territory) with the Victorian drummer. The drummer earned his nickname because that was his task: to drum up business.

These are all businesses, but apparently the drummer and the megachurch are the only ones who, uh, "drum up" business... and the megachurch drives everything else out of business, just as the drummer was himself driven out... of business... that he had attempted to drum up... it's a circle, you see.

94: [Again, megachurches:] And so when the music starts-and you know when it starts because the place shakes-the reverberence is literal. And when it's quiet, you can actually hear breathing. I haven't been to many rock concerts but my kids tell me the sound systems make isolation impossible. You don't listen to the sounds, you feel them.

I guess he means isolation from the music, i.e. silence. But that would give you "the sound systems make silence impossible" which is kind of the point at a rock concert? Side note: He also makes a reference to "electronic guitars" at some point, which doesn't mean what he thinks it means.

98: [In the office/seminar/study section of the megachurch:] Everything is neatly labeled in Helvetica, the floors have the telltale color-coded lines for how to get from here to there, the walls are greenish, the stairs all have no-slip strips, and the whole aura says Mayo Clinic. In fact, this side of Willow Creek looks like a hospital because, as I reflected, that's exactly what it is. There is even rubberized flooring in the stairwells just like the hospital. This is a cultural safe place. I almost expected to see one of those signs with a small child being hugged announcing a Safe Zone.

Sure, I guess he means hospital as "place where broken people are fixed" but... come on.

102: while men may read in private, in public they seem to crave the company of other men.

... I don't know (context doesn't provide any clues here, trust me).


Oh also he argues that the SAT introduced a kind of meritocracy into higher education and that class no longer plays a role.

I had mixed feelings about this book, but overall felt it was a worthwhile read. It was written over a decade ago (2004 publication date) and therefore lagged in some of its cultural commentary. The idea of megachurches, schools, and museums being all but forced to engage in the rat race inherent in advertising and marketing made for an interesting subject to mull over. It was a faster reader than it otherwise would have been thanks to Twitchell's witty writing style.

Having studied advertising and marketing at the University of Texas at Arlington, the commentary on brands seemed like a more entertaining version of some of my college textbooks. To a large extent I lament a lot of the effects of commercialization and mass marketing which seem to have removed the character from a lot of cities and towns, yet this is something that Twitchell seems to find more of a good than bad thing. Some professors (like some I probably had at UT Arlington UTA, would agree with Twitchell's dismissal of the notion that advertisers "create" desires instead of naturally bring preexisting ones to the forefront.

Although I can't knock the author for his opinion, I was disappointed that he didn't make a stronger case for preserving local economies over the seemingly unstoppable march of international brands. If you are looking for an insightful and at times witty analysis of modern marketing culture, you could do worse than Branded Nation.

Andrew Canfield UT Arlington UTA

A revealing look into the marketing of large institutions that used to shun such promotion, though the book does seem to promote an agenda with a heavy hand.

Things I learned:

The secret to great brands is that they are often nonsensical. Coke is the real thing. Apple thinks different. A diamond is forever. The superficiality is part of why the stories move so fast, like gossip. That friendly ads and outlandish creatures, like the Geico lizard and Tony the Tiger, work b/c we want magic, storytelling, and the humanizing of manufactured products. Gathering (especially for the young) is about creative choice and pleasurable sensation. Good ads change how we feel and become art themselves, which is why kids paper their bedroom walls with aspirational ads. Nothing terribly new here, but interesting examples are provided to reaffirm all of the above.