A Season of Associations, A Season of Lent

Like many of you, I am so drawn to the season of Lent.  I love being focused on drawing deeper to Christ during this time.  As we move through Lent, there are so many symbols, so many associations, that keep the intention of Lent right before us.  Of course, we start with Ash Wednesday and the ashes placed on our heads.  We see the purple vestments and immediately recognize that we are in Lent.  Even something as routine as Fridays take on special meaning each week during Lent.

Why do I mention this?  This week in the Marketing God Podcast, we talk of more tactical branding elements.  One of the key topics this week is about the associations that a brand has.  Associations are all around us and influence our perspective on topics, and yes, on brands.  Lent is a prime example of associations at work.  The associations we mentioned; ashes, purple, Fridays, come together in unique ways to remind us that we are in the season of Lent.

Associations are all around us and as Catholics, we have so many rich traditions, Saints, sacramentals, and more that help to deepen our understanding of a particular brand, parish, ministry, or school.  One of the key associations we have is Christ Himself.  In fact, this week we also reflect on Jesus as our “celebrity endorser”.  In this day and age, so many organizations turn to the “star” power of Hollywood actors, musicians, athletes and more to support and endorse their brands.  Often, celebrities find themselves is great trouble as their human frailties are on display, negatively impacting them and the brands they support.  But, as Catholics, we have Christ.  Christ is more than simply a celebrity endorser of course, he is the heart and soul of our faith, our parishes, our Catholic brand.  Do we turn to Him, rely on Him and use Him as we seek to engage with others becomes the question?

As we consider tactical elements of the brand this week in the Marketing God Podcast we also consider critical elements such as your organization’s name, the importance of clarity over cleverness and the role of message versus medium.  For those following along in the book, the Truths we focus on this week are Truth 19, Truth 8, Truth 22, Truth 33 and Truth 17.  As we step through the topics this week, we continue to try to offer insights that may be helpful and fruitful as you work on your parish’s or ministry’s marketing.  The topics of this week are all supportive of the brand strategy considerations posed last week. Of course, our end goal is to assist you as you evangelize; bring more people to your organization so that they too, can become loyal to God.

As before, there are worksheets with each podcast linked in the description and all the podcasts for this week dropped overnight.  So, you can listen to one a day or all at one time, whatever works best for you. You can find the podcasts on any of your favorite podcast apps or at media.donnaaheckler.com. 

If you want to join a community of people trying to determine how to reach more people, feel free to join the Marketing God Facebook group where we hope to work together, offer ideas and solutions that everyone can use. We continue to pray that these tools help you, your parish and ministry inspire those you support to become loyal to God!