Does GOD practice PR ?
It was purely by observation I realized that the latest users of Public Relations and marketing tactics are religious and spiritual organizations. Walking down London’s Tottenham court road you will almost definitely be stopped before a storefront called ‘the church of dianetics and scientology’ and will be asked to come in for a free stress test and an introduction into the practice of scientology. A few steps further down you may encounter a ‘Hare Rama, Hare Krishna’ disciple inviting you for a free meal at their temple along with an introductory discourse on Krishna consciousness. It may be disguised as ‘spreading the message’ but if you think about it, these smooth-talking, smart salesmen are practicing direct marketing and, throwing in freebies and incentives just ads to their use of promotional activities.
As a PR stude
nt it is interesting for me to notice how PR is taking over the world and is applying itself in all possible fields. However when it comes to faith or religion the roots of using promotional strategy or tactics that may classify as modern day PR are steeped in world history. For example Sikhism in India bas born out of Hindu-Muslin angst and angst against the caste system, however it spread by the effective word of mouth promotion of it’s founder- Guru Nanak and his disciples. Being only 531 years old, one could say that Guru Nanak saw a market for a religion of its kind and thus went about promoting it effectively. In a country like India, where religious converts usually arose out of conquests, Sikhism re-instated the concept of religion by way of ‘spreading the message’.Even Christianity and the Church are known to use widespread promotional tools and events towards spreading their message. In fact the Christian faith has since history been accused of using propaganda tools in order to further their belief;, however propaganda is also something that Public Relations has forever been accused of using. In light of this I found a comment on the BibleBabble website that may not have qualified as propaganda but it definitely qualifies as Public Relations,
“No doubt you have been walking down a street, in a store, or in a public bathroom, when you look down and there in front of you is a ten dollar bill, or a wallet, maybe even a nice folded up hundred dollar bill. You see the money and think that today is my lucky day (or in case of the wallet you hope there's ID so you can return the wallet), but when you pick it up it's actually something promoting Christianity. Who hasn't had this happen?”
By making all these observations, under no circumstances am I trying to insult any religious practices or lower the credibility of any religion, my observations purely go on to raise the credibility of the practice of Public Relations.


2 comments:
In fact I went to the temple mentioned,only a week back-but for some reason that sanctity and the peace which should be present in a temple was absent ? Maybe it was the overshadowing effect of PR ? Probably,that was it.
I think that all religions practice PR to a point, religious leaders are as interested in reputation management as anyone. This is, after all, why so many religious people protest when they feel their religion is under attack.
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