Check out my interview with John Morehead. It goes into a little more information about Brands of Faith.

In one of the recent posts, I explained the strong similarities between how we take on consumer products as part of our identity versus religious conversion.

However, there are two fundamental ways in which these processes are different. First, the initial step in the process of taking on a new faith (the decision to pursue a belief system) is internally driven. In the case of consumer products, this first step in learning about a product can be externally driven — that’s what advertising is all about. For spiritual seekers, the decision which faith to pursue can be external but the decision to even look is a personal one.

The second major difference exists in the timeframe that each organization works under. Consumer markets are driven by quarterly reports. Brand managers must show that they can move the needle if they expect to move up the corporate ladder. Therefore, it is incumbent upon them to move consumers through the acquisition process as quickly as possible. For faith groups, they are looking for someone who will make a long-term commitment. Therefore, they will take the time necessary to move seekers through the conversion process at their own pace.

This is an important lesson for marketers. Marketers want long-term consumers too. However, they rarely take the time necessary to cultivate these long-term (dare we say “evangelical”?) consumers. I remember hearing long ago (and I’m sure the figure is higher now) that the lifetime Budweiser drinker is worth $500,000 to Anheiser-Busch. Like A-B, marketers need to stop caring about the next widget — the next 6-pack — and look to cultivate the half-million-dollar lifetime drinker. The weight loss industry is another segment that has this right. Take Weight Watchers (WW) — they consistently come up with new research (which may very well be valid) showing that people who lose weight as part of a group lose more and, more importantly, sustain that loss over time. I’ve sat in enough of those meetings to know that some people do see WW as their “church.” They would no more miss a meeting that past generations would have missed a church service.

It is not just faith that can learn from marketers; marketers can definitely learn from faiths — relationships are developed over time no matter what your constraints may be.

On probably any other day, the trial of Warren Jeffs would be headline news. It has all the things that media outlets crave — religion, sex, and a trial with an unknown outcome. It’s Law & Order in real life. But even that couldn’t compete with OJ Simpson’s latest foray into tempting the legal system.

As most of you reading this know, Jeffs is — ok, was — the leader of a polygamist sect in Utah. (For those who want to see Jeffs instead of OJ, the trial is getting wall-to-wall coverage on Court TV). According to reports, under the authority of Jeffs young girls — pre-adolescent girls — were raped and forced to marry much older men. Young boys were forced out of the sect so as not to be competition for the older polygamists. (You see the boys had to leave because when you marry multiple young girls to one old man, a fundamental math problem rises.)

On the one hand, I suppose we should be grateful that we aren’t seeing Jeffs all over the news. Goodness knows we saw enough of him when he was initially arrested. Also as so many often complain, the only time we see religion in the news is when it is something bad — and Jeffs is about as bad as it gets. On the other hand, that we forget about Jeffs so quickly is to our detriment. We should not forget that there are religious fanatics among us, and not all of them are seeking a higher calling.

In the end, I hope both men get what they deserve — good, long prison sentences with a female judge pronouncing the sentence.

Since Brands of Faith will soon be available (my apologies for the delay for those that pre-ordered), I want to hint at some of the ideas from the book.

One of the key ideas in the book is that the process of taking on consumer products as part of your identity is identical to religious conversion. Of course there are likely to be larger implications in taking on a new religious identity, but that may not always be so. Think of Mac users or Harley Davidson riders. These product enthusiasts, dare we say evangelicals, are as committed oftentimes in their devotion as any religious believer.

The idea of brand communities (the academic term) or brand cults (the business term) is not new in my work. What I do, however, is show the process — something previous works do not do. I also suggest that the process was initially a religious process that marketers co-opted and now religions are merely taking it back (and are being lambasted for doing so).

What can religions/faiths learn from this? First, I think they should stop apologizing for marketing. It is impossible in this day and age not to promote your product. Second, they should get smart about marketing. This week a reporter called to get my opinion about a church that was using robocalling. This is just the sort of thing churches shouldn’t do. If you are trying to promote fellowship and humanity, why in God’s name would you use a machine to talk to people? Finally, remember what you are selling. The book and the seeker service are the marketing; they aren’t the product.

What can marketers learn from this? First, making a product part of a consumer’s identity is practically part of their DNA. They have gone through the process so many times it is part of who they are. Don’t fight the process. Work with it. Second (and I know you’ve heard this before, but it’s worth repeating), your ultimate goal is to create word of mouth. What is word of mouth, but creating an evangelical? How do you do that? Hint: outsourcing, lousy customer service, and robocalling are not your friend. Last, one thing religions have over marketers is time. The process of creating an evangelical takes time. Unfortunately, marketers are too quick to push the button and stop a campaign before it’s had a chance to do its job. I understand that there are short-term reasons for this, but it will only hurt in the long run.

While Rosh Hashanah is one of the most important days in the Jewish calendar, it is also a day of celebrating. We celebrate the New Year, we ponder what we did well and not so well over the past year, and we try to live our lives in the next 10 days as a template for how the year ahead should look. Therefore I’m doing everything I can not to obsess about money, my weight, the state of the world…and rather to look for things to delight in and smile about. To that end, I provide the following link to a Do-it-yourself High Holiday sermon.

Enjoy, and yes, it’s ok to laugh.

On this most conflicted of holidays, I thought it only appropriate to put down some of my ponderings about Islam of late.

In the wake of September 11th, the media went out of its way to present Islam as a peaceful religion. From news broadcasts to Oprah, programming presented Islam as a caring, loving faith and the people who flew the planes into the World Trade Towers as simply a small part of a radical fringe.

Six years later, more and more people seem to be reassessing this earlier description. Can a religion that recommends killing all who are not of the faith be considered peaceful? Can people who dance in the street over the loss of innocent lives be considered peaceful? And what about Islam’s treatment of women? Calling Islamic women second class citizens would be a vast understatement of the case. Rather, they are property with no rights — objects to be beaten or sexually abused.

Now, of course, you could say the fanatical elements of all faiths place draconian demands on their believers. They demand a blind faith, and they expect that all others believe what they believe. Certainly some of this was seen on Christiane Amanpour’s series, God’s Warriors, which will be repeated tonight on CNN. And certainly there are millions of Christians who believe that I am going to hell. The difference is that they don’t want to help me get there.

As a mother, I fear for the world we live in today. I fear that it is the radical element of Islam that is spreading ever more rapidly throughout the world. As it has often been quoted: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.” It was said repeatedly after the Holocaust, after 12 million people were senselessly murdered. Are we waiting for that to happen again? Where are the peaceful Muslims? Why aren’t you screaming to take back your faith? What are you doing so that evil does not triumph? I ask this of Muslims — ok I ask it of all us including me. But I believe much of the responsibility must fall to Muslims, because it is they who best understand what we must fight.

I write this at the exact time when the first plane hit the first tower. New York is my home town and still today I sometimes look for the Towers to orient myself in the city, or I fly back home expecting to see them in the skyline. But, of course, they are not there, and all I can do is ask myself is “why?”

Like many of you, I suspect, I’ve been taking it a little easy this summer. But, school begins today and so must I.

I recently saw a posting from a job site that said they were specifically looking for people who were “in alignment with The Secret.” In answering the ad, you were directed to a site called Selfimprovementlife.net

Once on the site, a New-Agey female voice tells you that it is no accident that you’ve been drawn to the site. This is a way for you to change your life. However, a cursory review of the site shows that this is simply an MLM (Multi-level marketing) plan, or what we used to call a pyramid scheme.

Does practicing The Secret make you a better sales person? More agressive? More determined to pursue your goals? I doubt it. Rather this seems to be simply another way to take advantage of people who are grasping at straws in their lives.

While all of the authors in The Secret, have been parlaying that success into further wealth for themselves, Jack Canfield seems to be the most visible and persistent. Mr. Canfield has spent the summer sending out a barrage of emails inviting people to listen to one of his online teleconferences or attend one of his speaking engagements around the country. That’s all fine and I wish him well. I just hope that the people who are attending can afford the steep fees he often charges…and I doubt that Selfimprovementlife.net will help them get there.