This week: how to sell God, how to feel about Brexit, and who won Britpop. SELLING GOD I like thinking about religions as businesses or brands. What made some grow while others died out? They needed to find a gap in the market, to win followers, get popular, and to do so they all have their own distinctive branding and product features. The resurrection story of Christianity was a marketing masterstroke. There were other messianic Jewish sects, but nobody had come up with a story about a messiah coming back from the dead. Not only did it tell a better story than its competitors but it massively increased its distribution by reaching out to gentiles (a bit like Windows beating Apple in the 1980s by making itself compatible with all PCs). Early Islam grew, not just by conquest and killing, but by making itself compatible with existing market standards - regulatory alignment if you like. It said, we're People of the Book too. Jesus is a prophet. That allowed it a crucial incubation period before competition intensified. Anyway, excuse my
Shake it, shake it, shake it, feel good
Shake it, shake it, shake it, feel good
Shake it, shake it, shake it, feel good
This week: how to sell God, how to feel about Brexit, and who won Britpop. SELLING GOD I like thinking about religions as businesses or brands. What made some grow while others died out? They needed to find a gap in the market, to win followers, get popular, and to do so they all have their own distinctive branding and product features. The resurrection story of Christianity was a marketing masterstroke. There were other messianic Jewish sects, but nobody had come up with a story about a messiah coming back from the dead. Not only did it tell a better story than its competitors but it massively increased its distribution by reaching out to gentiles (a bit like Windows beating Apple in the 1980s by making itself compatible with all PCs). Early Islam grew, not just by conquest and killing, but by making itself compatible with existing market standards - regulatory alignment if you like. It said, we're People of the Book too. Jesus is a prophet. That allowed it a crucial incubation period before competition intensified. Anyway, excuse my