Branded
Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld.
James B. Twitchell. New York: Simon
& Schuster, 2005. Pp. 327. $14.00, paper. ISBN: 0-7432-4347-1. FAX: 800-943-9831
Branding, says James Twitch-ell, is nothing more than commercial storytelling.
Brands are the stories that are associated with products. (For example, the
special taste of Evian, says Twitchell, is in the brand, not the water.)
Branding has become so successful, so ubiquitous, that even institutions we
thought were above it, antithetical to it, have succumbed. Such cultural institutions
as religion, higher education, and the art world have learned to love Madison
Avenue or lose market share. Although most ministers, university presidents,
and museum directors will insist that branding has nothing to do with them,
as Twitchell shows in this examination of three of our most important cultural
institutions, wherever supply exceeds demand, branding follows.
The rise of the megachurch, Twitchell says, epitomizes branding in religion.
From its inception, the megachurch was designed not to compete with other
churches but to bring in the “unchurched,” especially men, worshippers
who might otherwise be home watching television or strolling through the mall
on a Sunday morning. The mega-churches have been phenomenally popular, none
more so than Willow Creek Community Church, just south of Chicago, one of
the oldest mega-churches Twitchell analyzes.
Colleges and universities have embraced branding as they have grown more alike.
Especially among the top schools in the country, the student bodies, the faculties,
and often even the campuses themselves are, in Twitchell’s view, practically
interchangeable.
What distinguishes each school is the story it tells about itself. Now every
institution of higher learning has its image organizers, its brand managers,
usually in the admissions or development offices, whose job is to make their
institution seem different from all the rest.
Even museums do not escape the author’s scrutiny. With their multimillion-dollar
Monets, museums have seen the advantages of branding. The blockbuster exhibitions
often put familiar paintings in a new context, that is, they provide a new
narrative, branding the art.
Museums keep expanding their stores, placing them not just near the entrance
on the ground floor but throughout the museum, in the galleries themselves.
Some museums, such as the Guggenheim, even franchise themselves, turning the
institution itself into a brand. In short, high culture is beginning to look
more and more like the rest of our culture.
In perhaps his most subversive observation, Twitchell doesn’t condemn
the branding of cultural institutions. On the contrary, he believes that branding
may be invigorating our high culture, bringing it to new audiences, making
it a more integral part of our lives.
