Branding Church by Jeff Cinquemani

I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the Hula Hoop craze that broke out in 1958, as I was just being born, but you can bet I was around to see most of the other crazes that hit us Baby Boomers between the 60’s and 70’s. It was an age of hard-hitting advertising and youth marketing that the world had never seen before. We watched Adidas, Calvin Klein and Izod take relatively cheap and inexpensive apparel and turn it into ultra high-priced, pretentious fashion statements. We saw companies like Winnebago, Harley Davidson, Ski Nautique, and Tupperwear not just make products, but form literal communities of loyalty and establish clubs formed solely for the reason of being with others who also loved that same product.

I think it was this kind of marketing exposure that gave me the idea to attempt my own “craze”: The AC Bike Company. It was pure genius. My friend Paul had bike part connections, and I had friends who loved biking. It was the perfect marriage. We would both build the bikes and then, because of our low overhead, sell them to all our friends at a margin that everyone would be happy about. As I shared the idea with my friends, I could tell by the look in their eyes that this idea had potential. Already I could see the anticipation of our new product line growing. By the next day my girlfriend at the time already had orders for five caps, fourteen t-shirts, and one pin, all with our “AC” logo. Could it get any better, I thought?

When I walked into his garage, the site where the proposed bike production would take place, I could tell Paul was less than excited. “What’s the problem?” I asked. “I don’t like it,” he shot back. “I don’t like the fact that we have people wanting to wear hats, and t-shirts and silly little pins but have no intension of ever even sitting on a quality AC bike.” My girlfriend was prepared for my “Purist” Partner. She began to eloquently explain the value of product branding and marketing. She tried to help him see that this strategy would pay off in the end as more and more people became familiar with the AC logo, but with each point Paul became increasingly hardened. Finally in frustration, she blurted, “Do you think that John Deere wants everyone who buys their little toy tractors, or caps, or ties to be a farmer? Of course not! They don’t care; they just want to make money, and they found out that their name makes money.”

That was all it took. Paul stated that he was out, and my dreams of being part owner of a huge bike company were over. Paul was not interested in selling a name or creating an image. He could care less about trinkets and flare. He wanted to build bikes for people who wanted the best, and anyone who would settle for less – in his mind – should not be part of that elite.

Now being a pastor, I see people like my friend Paul all over. I enjoy the conversations we have – some from a perspective of being a church member, and others from looking in from an “outsider’s” viewpoint. I think it’s important to wrestle with these issues, and though the church is not a company, we still must seriously consider the questions. “How far do we go to ‘popularize’ the church?” “Is there a point where our broad acceptance of others compromises our mission as a church?” “Does our brand loyalty to a particular church help or hurt us in the Kingdom of God?”

On one hand, I learned a lesson in image versus substance. On the other hand, Paul built one bike from this whole deal. It was a very good bike, but no one else has one.

Jeff Cinquemani