I was reading through posts in Google Reader this morning and this ad came up at the bottom of one post:

I thought “they can’t seriously be suggesting that using a disposable cup is better because of germs.” So I clicked on it. And sure enough Dixie has a whole website telling you that using a real cup will make your kids sick. If you watch the commercial, it features kids trying to say the names of bad illnesses that they might catch from their cup.

So now we have companies telling America that it’s better for your health to be a more wasteful society. I happen to have another brilliant solution to this health crisis.

Wash the cup.

Brand Schizophrenia

How are you going to help me with my stuff?
stuff=  anything that tells a story through print, digital, web

Communications is a huge bucket that stuff falls into. With stuff comes issues.

Our issues fall into two buckets.
1. How can I get people to let me do “more stuff”?
2. How can I get people to stop asking me to do so much stuff?

Stuff keeps happening and all of our leadership teams keep telling us that things will slow down soon.

Sometimes we think that brand = stuff.

“Policies are a mission that you can’t lead”

We’ve got every ministries “stuff” and we end up with brand schizophrenia.

If it’s just about “stuff” why don’t we just go work in the corporate world? We could make more money and tithe it back to the church.

But it’s not about the stuff, it’s about Jesus.

The problem is brand not stuff, it’s not a logo, it’s not an identity package.

Brand is not what YOU say, it’s what THEY say.
That’s hard to manage.

2 Faces of brand
1. the expectation of an experience
2. the emotional aftertaste left after an experience

Shawn tells a story about going to a restaurant and getting Mr. Pibb instead of Diet Coke. What if the restaurant came over after seeing him spew it everywhere and said “we’re sorry that happened. We’ll talk to Coke and ask them to change the Diet Coke logo.” But we don’t need them to change the logo, we need Diet Coke to come out of the fountain.

Sometimes we set up expectations with our brand and then leave a bad aftertaste because we never get to the root problem.

The root problem is the details.
Someone hooked up the mr. pibb hose to the Diet Coke cannister and ruined the experience.

Matthew 16:13-16
Jesus does the first marketing survey.

Jesus asked 2 important questions:
1. What are they saying?
- we need to know what they are saying
2. What is the core saying I am? What are those that have experienced me saying that I am?
- What do I expect to receive when I come to the church?

Jesus does not try to manage his “brand.” He doesn’t tell the disciples to go talk to the people that say he’s John the Baptist to correct them. He doesn’t try to re-brand.
He knows that when people experience him they’ll know who He is. He creates experiences.

What are people going to experience when they actually come and sit in front of Jesus?

If you ask people who you are and it doesn’t match up with who you say you are then you have a problem.

Managing brand = control
Creating experiences = less control
- letting people that have experienced our church be our brand
- if we try to “manage brand” we’ll go crazy. But if we create experiences that give people what they expect they will become our brand

3 W’s- Weekend, web , word of mouth
Is everything we’re doing in these three areas helping people become fully devoted followers of Christ? If it doesn’t then we’re creating experiences that don’t match who we want to be.

Is the experience distinctive?
Relevance- sometimes we’re answering questions that no one is asking
- what would happen if we were bold enough to not do some of the stuff?
Are the experiences we’re creating memorable in a way that brings them back?
Excellence is over-rated, look and feel is over rated, technology is over-rated…the only measure is “is it effective?”

An Artist’s Mandate
Our primary job is to create for and unto God.
Get good at what you do. Do it as unto God.

Sometimes we are involved in details that only God will see.

Herom took time to look at the details even though no one would ever see them. (Shawn didn’t give the reference for this scripture…I’m interested in finding the story though.)

A Matter of Message

Matthew 5:13-16
Matthew 10
- A description and a prescription for how to carry the message

Be Salty
Be Transparent
Think Local
Keep It Simple

To be salty- to pursue more of God
We run the danger of growing bigger churches instead of growing bigger people.
It’s hard to decide between what’s good and what’s God.

To be Transparent- pursuing our own story
Sometimes we forget the beauty of stepping outside of what we do and just being with people.
Our technology and jobs can dwarf what we do.
By opening up with others you’ll prompt people to open up with God.
“The Gospel of Welcome” is a lost art.
Inviting people over to dinner instead of out to dinner.

To Think Local- pursuing others
Think about where you’re at
“How much impact would we have if we simply played the part of the Good Samaratin?” -Mark Batterson

Keep It Simple- pursuing a life of less
We’re getting pretty good a presentation, but is that all we’re getting better at?
Do we have more media than meat?
Is it working? Are more people coming to Jesus

Branding 1.0

How do we get all the ministries in the church communicating the same message?

Brand- the practice of delivering a promise that reflects the mission, uniqueness and personality of your organization.
Building a brand is kind of like building a house- you need blueprints to build from.

Positioning- determining how you want to be defined by your audience
- Not just who you are but who you’re not

We want to ensure that your audience’s perceptions are an accurate reflection of who you really are.

What do we want to be known for?
If we’re not intentional about defining who we are, others will do it for us.

Brand strategy
Who are you serving?
What are your unique strengths?
How do you reach people with impact?

Blanding- trying to be all things to be all people- it becomes watered down and “bland”

Branded house- a strong name that you leverage with everything (Disney)

House of Brands- for serving audiences with different names (Procter & Gamble)

Don’t ask “what are we trying to say?” but “what conversation are we trying to create?”

How Do I Get Started?
- Clairify the vision
- Identify your biggest fans
- Give them something to talk about
- Give them tools to share the story

I launched two new websites this week.

Christ The Rock Online
I’ve been working on this project for over 2 months. It’s still not fully complete. I have a lot of work to do with filling in content and integrating the site with our new FellowshipOne database. But it is certainly a huge step up from our previous site. I worked with a company called SiteWrench. They have a very nice content management system that they’ve built as well as a team of talented designers. They produced a great design and we now have a site with more functionality than ever. The best part is that I no longer have to worry about any backend coding issues. If something breaks down I give them a call. All I have to worry about is content. At times SiteWrench has been a bit slow at making changes but overall I’m loving it.

www.davecrowrocks.com
I know the domain name makes me sound a bit arrogant. It would be if I was saying it about myself. But it comes from what people that I’ve worked with have said. I’m not sure how much I rock, I’m just going by what I’m told. Plus some British comedian took all the variations of davidcrow.com and davecrow.com. But this is my online design portfolio which is way overdue. It is built on WordPress and I’m using the NextGEN Gallery plug-in to create a sweet looking image gallery. It’s short, simple and to the point. I’ll be updating this as I get more projects and become a better designer.

Three quick, maybe unrelated thoughts that I’ve wanted to write over the past few days…

I drove by a billboard for a bank the other day that said:

Sunday is a day of rest.
(For most banks.)

I was just struck by what this says about American culture. Especially as we’ve tried to pursue taking a Sabbath. One of the hardest parts about taking a day of rest is that it’s so opposite of the way our culture is set up. It goes back to the lie that says if you’re busy, then you’re important. Only lazy people rest.

We just got back to Appleton today after spending 10 days in Illinois for the holidays. It was a great trip, but we were definitely ready to come home and sleep in our own bed.

I received a number of books for Christmas and decided that I should start a reading list. I do enjoy reading, but I’m not the fastest reader in the world. Mostly because I don’t make time for it. Maybe making a list will help me get through more material this year. Some of these I’ve had for a while but haven’t gotten around to reading. I’m starting with 10 books and if I really make it through that many in a year I will have set a record for myself. Here they are in no particular order:

I just got this for Christmas and almost finished it on the drive home (thanks to Megan for driving the entire way). I should have it checked off the list in a few days.

I’ve wanted to read this for quite a while, but couldn’t ever afford it. (I actually recieved two of them so I exchanged one at Barnes & Noble for store credit.) This isn’t for novice Photoshop users, but if you’re serious about professional image editing it’s a must read.

Same story with this book. Not for novices, but if you have to make complex selections a lot this is the best book on the subject.

Since I had store credit at B&N I went shopping and came accross this book. I’ve wanted an InDesign book for a while, but all of the ones I’ve looked at were pretty basic- just telling you what each pallete does and explaining features. I really wanted a typography book and this one looked really good. It teaches professional typography techniques while using InDesign to execute them. Leading, kerning, tracking, drop caps, hyphens, text flow and alignment, style sheets, nested styles and everything else a typography nerd could want!

Also a typography book, but a little more of an acedemic read. This is more of the theory behind typography. Even higher on the nerd scale.

I should have read this a long time ago. I’ve seen so many quotes from it that I kind of feel like I’ve read it. Better late than never, right?

This is one I’ve had for a long time but haven’t gotten around to reading. Some communications people that I really respect recomend it so I’m taking the plunge.

Again, I’ve had this one for a while and I think I’ve read about half of it. It’s a really easy and entertaining read (especially for a web book) so I want to read the whole thing this year. You should really check it out if you’re doing any web design.

This one I don’t actually own, but I think I’ve seen it around the office so I plan on borrowing it. I’ve heard a lot of good things and read bits and pieces while sitting at B&N. I’m excited to find out what this “hedgehog principle” is.

Yah, I’m a bad twenty-something post-modern/emerging/hipster Christian for having never read this. Charlie taught out of it as one of the first teachings at Nexus and I’ve been hearing about it and reading quotes ever since. I’ve read “Searching For God Knows What” and it was great. I think I know most of the content but figured I should finally read it for myself.

10 books in a year is a pretty hefty goal for me, so we’ll see how I do. Happy 2007.

The (Product) Red campaign is genius from a marketing standpoint. Bono was on Oprah today talking about the idea and I thought it was really cool. It’s a great way to bring the AIDS crisis to the average American. I’m sure some would accuse the companies involved of exploiting the crisis for profit, but I’ve not talked to the CEO of GAP or Motorola, so I can’t make that call.

Hopefully this campaign will help open the eyes of non-profits and the church about how powerful effective marketing can be. We have message worth telling people and often we’re just not effective communicators. Many organizations have tried for years to get Americans to become actively involved in the AIDS crisis, but I’m betting this will be the most successful in reaching people that have never been involved otherwise. I think the key difference in the (Product) Red approach (as well as the ONE campaign) is that the message is about hope instead of the traditional message about Africa.  I can get on board with that.

But let me clairify and say that this is more than just a clever marketing gimik. It’s actually a great idea, or a remarkable idea as Seth Godin would say. It’s a cause worth telling people about and it’s an incredibly creative way to do it. And that’s why I think it will be successful.

Today a band sent me this message on MySpace:

we are a christian band. we are looking to get signed and need as many friends as possible on myspace. If you could please add us to your friends list we would greatly appriciate it.
God Bless

I decided that I’m kind of tired of getting these horribly written messages from random bands on MySpace. So I decided to write them back in an effort to help them not make fools out of themselvs. Here is what I wrote and this is a letter to all bands spamming people on MySpace:

Ok guys I’m gonna be honest with you.

This message is TERRIBLE marketing. You need to do some research and understand who your audience is.

A few pointers:

1. This message is all about you and how I can help you out. You haven’t made one mention of how I, the listener, might enjoy your music or what kind of experience your band is offering that is different than the 10,000 other bands on myspace.
2. You need to realize that I get tons of these messages every week and I’m probably not going to take the time to click on your profile and listen to your music simply to do a favor for some guys I’ve never heard of. Begging me to do this certainly won’t help.
3. If you’re really serious about doing music full time you need to dump some money into a good designer that understands marketing, a good website, and a good photographer that can do something more creative than the cliched brick wall shots. And your friend who knows how to use Photoshop is not a good designer.
4. For future reference, if you decide to continue sending out these messages at least make them about the listener and not all about you.
5. If you really want to be effective you need to get your current fans to tell their friends about their band. If you tell me your band is good I won’t believe you. But if my friend says your band is good, then I might check you out.

So now you can blow me off because I sound like a big jerk or you can think about the things I’ve suggested and improve your ability to get the word out about your band.

Have a good one.

I’m in Phoenix, AZ for the next few days for MinistryCOM. Today was the first day and it was AMAZING. It’s a fairly small conference, but it’s great because I’ve been able to meet a lot of people. My friends Tim from Riverside and Kirt from Northwoods are here and it’s been cool to hang out with them. It’s late, so I don’t have time to go over the sessions and what I learned today, but it’s been awesome. Tony Morgan, who I had the priveldge of eating lunch with today, has some good notes on his blog. Kem Meyers session was particularly inspiring. This has been a great experience and I’m looking forward to doing lunch with a bunch of people from the Church Marketing Lab tomorrow.