I'm in Boston right now! Long story (filled with wonderful ways that God was working), but I am here on a scholarship to attend the Religion Communicator's Council National Convention. This is an amazing organization that is celebrating 80 years...the oldest religious communication organization in the United States!
This year's event is titled: Identity Amid Diversity. There are people from all different faith communities here, but also many different denominations of Christianity. They come from all parts of the country and work in any number of different media or communications capacities. It's so exciting to walk around hearing people use words like "editing suite," "rendering," and "press release." This must be what Elvis impersonators feel like in Vegas!
The workshops are centered mostly around marketing and branding. Today I attended a workshop called "Cause Branding." It was specifically tailored for how to brand and why to brand for a particular cause. I rate it a 9 out of 10! Why not a 10? I did feel like they spoke very fast which was sometimes frustrating because I just couldn't keep up. But maybe that's because there was so much great information and they probably could have done 4 workshops to accurately cover Cause Branding. Here are some of my notes:
1. Think of a brand as a person. What are the values you can attach to the brand you are selling? What impression can you form of the brand through media?
2. Better Business equals Greater Good. The better your business, or in this case your organization, can function and interact with people, the greater amount of good your organization will be able to have.
3. Passion Branding. This is why Cause Branding is so different from regular branding, especially different from corporate branding. With Passion Branding, the organization is the cause, there's no need to attach a cause to it.
a. What is your mission?
b. What are you making available to the community? i.e. web, brochures, special events
4. They discussed several levels of branding. They did this in two ways. The second is my favorite, but here's the first:
a. Cause Promotion: looking to sell a product, very short term branding, promotional
b. Cause Branding: what specific aspect of the issue at hand really means something to who you're trying to reach? this level is aimed at volunteerism, education, advocacy, and content is high priority
c. Cause Platform: care about the community, the community is the platform you will reach and use to reach others
d. Corporate Citizenship: the "highest" level because it incorporates things across the entire organization. The brand looks the same, but different across the organization, the brand is carried out in all aspects of the organization
The second categorization of branding was the GOLDEN NUGGET of this workshop! Personal experiences of the target audience are mapped out and progress with consistency. In this model, marketing begins with UNAWARENESS. The second stage, AWARENESS comes about with advertising; What do we stand for? The third stage, RELEVANCE builds on Awareness with more direct advertising tailored to a particular target audience. These first three stages make up the Contact period during which the level of loyalty, interest, and bottom line of the brand are in steady incline. The fourth stage, CONSIDERATION is closely related to the fifth, SELECTION. This is the time when the audience thinks about and then decides to trust the brand. The audience considers getting involved and this might require some interpersonal contact. However up until stage 5, the branding process has been a monologue with the organization doing all the talking. With stage 6, we see a leveling off of interest, but the conversation turns into a dialogue between the organization and the audience who now places value and loyalty in the brand. These two make up the Conversion period. Stages 7, SATISFACTION and 8, EVANGELISM are the mountaintop of branding success. Once a person reaches the top, they begin to tell their others about your brand and the process starts all over again. However, this Cultivation period can always slide back int he other direction. The link of stages is really a bit of a sliding scale. It depends on the consistency, transparency, and meaningful communication of the organization to maintain and nurture people to the Evangelism stage.
That's enough for tonight...man it's late! So what do you think? All this comes from Core, a company handling many profit and non-profit accounts.
Thanks for reading, now I'm listening!
Sarai- the Picture Preacher
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