Warning: This might hurt your religious sensibilities.
I am an agnostic atheist. I appreciate religion in that without religion, there wouldn’t have been exponential growth in storytelling, art and science. This week, I’ve been reading a book titled ‘An atheist’s history of belief’. Matthew Kneale, in the book, takes the reader through religions from 77,000 years ago to more recent inventions like Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and more.
It’s mostly broad strokes. I am not qualified enough to comment on whether his predispositions affected the conclusion of the book. This is barely about the book. This is more about something that was playing in the back of my mind as I was reading the book: Religions popped up faster than digital marketing agencies at the time. Only a handful survived the test of time. And almost all of them followed a set of rules in their storytelling, that helped them gather a mass following over time. This is an attempt to draw a parallel between these rules and what we do, when we tell stories about brands.
1. It’s easier to please one God.
All major religions, the versions of them that exist today, were polytheistic. Pantheons of Gods who were responsible for each aspects of people’s lives were often led by one main God. Temples were built to honour each of the Gods. Each God would have a priest with whom they would negotiate.
Almost all of them transformed into monotheistic religions within a few centuries (although not willingly). Leaving aside the logistical efficiency that allocating all resources to one God would bring about, it also united people by giving them a common identity.
Lesson: Try to get people to associate your brand with one thing, not multiple things. Build memory structures and reinforce them through your messaging.
2. Pick the right influencer
Who can influence your audience on what you’re selling? Fortunately for our prophets (or their messengers), the choice was not as complicated as it is for today’s marketers. When it came to a new religion, the process was simple;
Get the Queen to endorse it —> The Queen endorses the King to endorse it to the people.
Lesson: The religions that made it, had royal patronage. Brands that make the most of their influencer budgets pick influencers who have authority over a subject, and with a loyal following. And they collaborate with influencers in devising creative ways to cut through the clutter rather than follow a one-size fits all ‘influencer marketing’ approach.
3. Identify and solve real problems
Diagnosis of human problems that you can solve in order to get them to buy your product, is the single most overlooked marketing activity. For a long time, Arabs were sidelined and neglected by empires looking for global dominance, the prophet Muhammad promoted a nationalistic vision to them, where they gain back what was rightfully theirs. Force and rebellion were the two key ingredients that motivated Arabs to join Muhammad’s cause.
While most prophets were not alive to see their visions transform into mass-scale religions, Muhammad succeeded in unifying and getting thousands of people behind his cause during his lifetime.
Lesson: Identifying the problem is three-quarters of the battle won.
4. Strategy is not eternal
The God’s word and the books that entail God’s word, have changed to fit political agendas, forged to topple empires, and even to win over new converts. Most religions that started out being apocalyptic, transformed into those that promised eternal life. Those that demanded celibacy, resorted to being happy with monogamy. Religious and political institutions changed the prerequisites for a happy afterlife depending on the actions they wanted their constituents to take.
Lesson: Strategy should change to complement the other social, technological, political forces that are changing the way people behave.