The ablitily to manipulate is a human trait, one of the many that separate us from animals. Smart people started getting really good at it thousands of years ago. Imagine living in a time when people would believe anything? A Marketers dream. The bible/christianity was the biggest and most sucessful marketing campaing ever.

Communication, I agree, there are brilleant theologians – Richard Halloway, Margaret Atwood, Arne Ness, too many amazing minds to mention (search for “New Dementions”). It is time to hand it all over to the marketing department, if the world is to be saved.

Interesting angle. Reading your article I was thinking that sometimes the reverse is also true; sometimes religion borrows successfully from the world of business. I’m thinking specifically about the evangelical Christians in Latin America. By pioneering the use of marketing techniques successfully employed in business and by being media savvy, the evangelicals have been able to challenge the Catholic church’s traditional dominance.

It is not uncommon to see 100,000 people fill up a stadium to hear an evangelical preacher, while the Catholic church has trouble finding enough people who want to become priests. The Catholic church had a virtual monopoly on religion for 500 years but remained stuck to the past. The evangelicals embraced marketing and now they are taking over.

Fascinating topic with a lot of interesting marketing implications.