In Boulder, I began laying out my new work as it relates to marketing and faith. I am trying to understand what happens to the concept of service, giving, caring for others–something that is fundamental to most faith system–when that becomes commoditized.

Thus while in Brands of Faith, I asked the question “What happens when you market religion?” My new work will ask the question “What happens when you market service?”

Broadly in terms of marketing faith, I concluded that religion is a product and in today’s overly cluttered media market it is necessary for religious institutions to market themselves—in particular brand themselves—in order to remain part of the cultural discourse.

I have also discussed that religions needs to ensure that they do not give up their USP, their unique selling proposition. A USP, a term coined by the late advertising legend Ted Bates, is based on a product’s attributes (physical characteristics) or benefits (what the consumer gets from interacting with the product). Based on these attributes and benefits a marketer creates a positioning statement that differentiates the product from the competition. One of the most well-known USPs is M&Ms’ “melts in your mouth, not in your hand.”

If we look at religion through the same lens, we might break down its attributes and benefits in the following way: Religion’s attributes are written texts, a place to go on Saturday or Sunday, a source of information from a leader, and other tangible elements found in most organized religions. Its benefits are fellowship, interaction with likeminded people, a better sense of well-being, and, perhaps, salvation. In addition, religious institutions provide a place where people can demonstrate their commitment to a higher purpose, specifically through service.

So, an important aspect of a religious organization’s USP is ways in which it enables people to serve.

I began thinking about these ideas because of two unrelated events. First, I was asked to speak on a panel at the 2007 Media Reform Conference in Memphis about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While, like most people, I had some slightly more than vague ideas about Dr. King and his legacy, doing the research for that presentation forced me to dig a bit deeper and created a stronger appreciation for the work that he had done.

Shortly thereafter, the (Product) Red campaign was launched in the US after having a successful debut in the UK. My initial response as a marketer was, “That’s f**kin’ brilliant.” After a breath and thinking as a human being instead I thought, “That’s f**kin’ horrible.” In putting these two events together I couldn’t help but think “where are the Dr. Kings of today? Who has taken over the mantle of the social gospel? Is it truly Corporate America and celebrities like Bono and Oprah? Has Cause-Related Marketing and its sister, Corporate Social Responsibility replaced true social action and radical political change, a function that used to be the work of religious leaders?” As I looked at these two events in relationship to one another I found my new line of research questions:

1. What happens when you market “service?”
2. Has Corporate America hijacked one of faith’s key benefits, i.e., service?
3. Where are the preachers, the pastors, and the rabbis? Are they doing the work of the social gospel, and if they doing the work, are we just not seeing it (which may be significant)? Why not?
4. Can religious institutions regain their service USP?

So, that’s what I’m thinking about these days. Next I get into what Corporate Social Responsibility is and how it is the “new hot thing” in Corporate America.

In April, I did an event at the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Grad Center. On the panel with me were Douglas Rushkoff (Media Virus, Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism), Jeff Sharlet (check out his new book called The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, which is getting great reviews), and Heather Hendershot (Shaking the World for Jesus).

To listen to the Brands of Faith event at CUNY, click here.

Last week I got back from one of the most interesting conferences I had attended in years. The Media, Spirituality and Social Change conference was held at the University of Colorado at Boulder, home to the Center for Media, Religion and Culture. The focus, as the name suggests, was to bring together academics and activists around the idea of how faith interacts with social change within the changing media environment. I saw a number of inspirational (pun intended) papers, one of which I want to highlight here.

Lee Gilmore lectures on religion, arts and the humanities and has been studying Burning Man for more than a decade. (I assuming most people reading this know about Burning Man, but for those of you that do not you can check out the Burning Man Web site.) Dr. Gilmore presented a paper in Boulder called Convergence Culture, Web 2.0, and DIY Spiritualities.

What I found fascinating about this work was the connections she draws between do-it-yourself (DIY) spirituality that sociologists have been discussing for decades (combining Judaism and Buddhism, for example) and today’s participatory Internet (Web 2.0). We get to make media the way we want in much the same way many Americans have been “making” spirituality the way that suits them. It makes sense that the new Web 2.0 world in which we live would perpetuate this phenomenon. Much as the media is converging so too “these processes are in turn at work in movements across the American religious landscape…” Media is not working in a vacuum, but rather these tools “are being utilized by individuals and communities who seek to participate in and shape public discourses around diverse religions and spiritualities.”

This is one of my central arguments in Brands of Faith. It was not enough that sociological changes led to Americans being more flexible in their faith; they also had to know about alternatives. Why stop being a Catholic, for example, if you don’t have anything to fill that void? The way one finds out about alternatives is via the ubiquitous media, particularly the Internet. Dr. Gilmore takes this idea a bit further when she suggests that increasingly more and more of our social constructions–particularly media constructions–are one’s we make ourselves and that creativity is moving into other aspects of our lives, notably our spiritual selves. We find new faiths and we mix and match for our own purposes–DIY spirituality.

So what does this have to do with Burning Man? A lot. “Burning Man festival…provides a venue for ritualizing that favors creative expressions of spirituality and often blends symbols and ideas from any number of diverse religious traditions, rather than relying on a single and clearly defined set of conventional practices. In so doing, Burning Man, as with the concept of “Convergence Culture,” challenges normative assumptions about where lived religious and ritual practice is located and how it is authorized.” This New Age-y event–I always think of it as a Woodstock-like happening–brings together people from very diverse backgrounds to have a shared, unexplainable experience over the course of a few days. It seems to me to be spirituality at it essence, and it is created by and through the experiences of the thousands of participants.

While I cannot do justice to Burning Man here, I do suggest that you check out an edited book called After Burn which deals with these issues in more depth.

I was told recently that the founders of Google are very “into” Burning Man and that pictures of this event grace many of their office walls. Could be they’re on to something, no? Will we see “Google Spirituality” next?