To Brand or Not to Brand
The issue of Liturgy entitled “Branded Worship,” guest-edited by Nelson Cowan. Here is an excerpt from "A Brand is a Promise" by Kate Williams and the responses to her interview questions to Dan Kantor who composed the music for the popular Christmas hymn "Night of Silence" which is stunning when sung with "Silent Night." –– Melinda Quivik
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DAN KANTOR: As a branding consultant who’s worked with many faith-based organizations, I’ve met my share of purists who insist churches should not be seen as brands. “We are not here to sell, or to make a profit, or to pitch a product,” they say. Understandably, there is a strong (and healthy) instinct to differentiate one’s church from overtly commercial perceptions.
This desire to differentiate, however, is precisely what branding is about. The reason one chooses to brand anything is to help an audience understand it more authentically while avoiding competitive blending or confusion with other products or services. When there is little differentiation, a product or service is perceived to be a generic commodity that may be easily substituted by any other.
What, then, is a brand? It’s a tricky word. It’s a noun, a verb, and even an adjective. Ask ten people what a brand is, and you’ll get more than ten different answers because they intuitively struggle with it being many things. . .
Let’s start with what a brand is not: Your brand is not a logo. A logo is just one of many elements that work in harmony to deliver a single, unified, intentional brand experience. Think of the many visual sightlines a good brand uses to communicate: signage, brochures, websites, marketing materials, colors, brand identity, environmental graphics, and so on. Then consider the intangibles such as the tone or attitude of your messaging. Are you friendly? Formal? Academic? What is your unique approach to liturgy? Or music? Or scripture?
All these elements combine to form your brand. So then, back to the question, what, then, is a brand?
The good news is a brand may be defined through just one word: promise. Every brand is a promise.
A brand promise lives in the mind of the audience, not the owner of the brand. Consider your own experience with popular brands. How do you, in your mind, differentiate, say, Apple from Microsoft, or Audi from Chevrolet?
KW: Yes, this makes sense to me. This is exactly what I was doing in my own first encounters with GIA as a teenager––I was receiving or interpreting a promise. It was important to me.
DK: The best brand promise is simple because it’s a shortcut to meaning. The strongest brands aren’t complicated to understand or remember. At a primal level, the human brain is wired for survival, so it likes to save energy wherever it can. The brain loves shortcuts. It loves simplicity, and branding leverages this. Good branding is good hospitality.
KW: As you’re talking, Dan, I’m hearing something that resonates deeply with Pope Francis’s emphasis on the Art of Accompaniment. During World Youth Day 2013, Pope Francis said:
We need a church capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a church that accompanies them on their journey; a church able to make sense of the 'night’ contained in the flight of so many of our brothers and sisters from Jerusalem; a church that realizes that the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return.
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The full essay including references is available now in the digital and print editions of Liturgy. All of the essays in Liturgy 38, nos. 2–3 are available by personal subscription and through many libraries.
Kate Williams, the vice president of Sacred Music at GIA Publications, serves as workshop leader, consultant, and musician in the Archdiocese of Chicago and abroad, following a passion to serve in multicultural, multigenerational communities, while mentoring young voices and building bridges through music ministry.
Daniel Kantor is the founder of KantorGroup, a brand strategy consultancy serving a broad range of corporate clients. As a musician and composer, Kantor is primarily known for his popular Christmas choral work, “Night of Silence,” published by GIA. See kantorgroup.com or nightofsilence.com. Graphic Design and Religion is available at giamusic.com.
Kate Williams and Dan Kantor, “A Brand is a Promise," Liturgy 38, nos. 2–3 (2023): 3–10.