Does branding work with religion?

In Generation Like and Branding Faith, a common thread is the capitalist system acting as the driver behind the paradigms under observation. Social media platforms are usually seen as a forum for others to share interests and opinions with likeminded individuals. The power of this opportunity used to be that information can be disseminated beyond the confines of time and space, shaping separate parts of the world into global communities. However, as Generation Like points out, the information shared between users during their mediated encounters is now being analyzed and coded by large corporations, as means of understanding consumer preferences and other habits. By piecing together certain aspects of a person’s social media profile, companies are able to gain insight into what products to market, when to market those products, and how to present them to specific users in an effort to increase profit. Profit increase is the end companies in Branding Faith are striving for as well.

Mara Einstein states, “…branding is about creating long-term profits and growing the business…branding exists to create profits”. With regards to religion, how does this model translate into growth for religious institutions? Would the monetary benefits of effective branding be comparable to adding members to a congregation, or a deeper commitment to the religious rituals? Based on our discussion from the beginning of the semester, the growth and prosperity of branding has an inverse relationship to the number of people regularly practicing religion. Even though Einstein gives us some insight into how religion institutions branded themselves in the earlier stages of their development, she does not explain how current branding models being used my commercial entities can be implemented to change the landscape of rituals within religion or religious practices themselves.