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Thankfully here my blog starts, (if my Disclaimer was just too much) I guess giving you an idea what am I talking about today is worth. Well today I am going talk about what I think religions exactly are, the concept that they build about this great ultimate power above everything called with different names. Now .. why am I blabbering this on a blog and expecting my busy bunch of friends to read it.. is that I am going to try and explain you why most people in this living world believe on this concept.
Well most of us have not seen god(I hope), most of us will not.. but you have not taken any chances, why ? Well if you ask me the answer is simple, because they sold it to you, long before you were born. GOD as we know today is most well marketed concept on earth.
But GOD is not a product, it is definitely a service ! I quote the definition:
Intangible products that are not goods (tangible products), such as accounting, banking, cleaning, consultancy,education, insurance, know how, medical treatment, transportation. Sometimes services are difficult to identify because they are closely associated with a good; such as the combination of a diagnosis with the administration of a medicine. No transfer of possession or ownership takes place when services are sold, and they (1) cannot be stored or transported, (2) are instantly perishable, and (3) come into existence at the time they are bought and consumed. See also service.
Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/services.html#ixzz0yOndGS24
This term “Service Marketing” is specialized form of marketing, that obviously is challenged when the Product itself lacks existence, cannot be touched felt and hence provides very little proof points.
For you to understand this concept, you may develop some basic understanding about marketing, try searching “marketing Ps” or “marketing mix 4ps”, you would get exactly what you need.
Whether you are lazy enough to ignore the above resources or not, lets go ahead with what am I talking about. The heart of the matter is that whenever you are marketing something, you must take four very critical decisions. They are called to be the Marketing MIX or 4 Ps:
PRODUCT – What exactly are you offering, what are its features, what value are you transferring to your customers. Now if you ponder, you might find a similarity between the concept of GOD given by almost all religion faiths:
· A supreme Power that sees us all – all say that our deeds are being recorded somewhere.
· They seem to answer the mysteries about creation of this world (unfortunately none of them even gets closer to what the real science behind it is.)
And most importantly all faiths describe a place to live and enjoy after you die.
PLACE- Well this means where exactly is your product or service available, newspaper is delivered at your doorstep or a pack of butter at outlets, Television sets in Big bazaars, BMWs at exclusive showrooms. Note the last type, I am sure you can figure out the connection yourself.
PRICE – So what is that you charge in return of your product/service. If you think well...., well you will see that nothing is for free. Majority of religions prescribe a strict discipline of life, food habits, thinking and ideologies that you must have in order to receive this wonderful service(if I may call it !). Being truthful, kind, lovable and non violent behaviour is basic of almost all religions, you would also see that this price for GOD factor has taken some more extreme forms. Fasting, restrictions on food, alcohol, sexual behaviour to physical pain-demonstrations, donations, sacrifices and what not.
PROMOTION – the term needs no explanation in today world. This in my opinion is the most vibrant feature of almost all religions that has such as astonishing similarities with such an unusual subject of marketing.
By definition, these are ways of advertising and communicating with the consumer to encourage usage. This essentially happens by choosing effective channels, channels that reach the target market, let us take some examples:
Personal communication- where people have direct contacts and communication about product/service flows.
Non Personal communication- refers to indirect ways of communicating like- Print media, Posters, television advertisements, with these options being limited from the early days, you will notice however many of them have been utilized in various degrees. Imagine the time when there were no magazines, no print media, no MTV, it is more than obvious that parallel media types were invented to carry communication - music, dance, arts and literature.
Much more than above communications techniques, there are many more other ways of promotions that create a favourable condition to attract your customers. They can be a variety of such techniques like organizing events, forming fan clubs as in Royal Enfield, Harley Owner’s Group etc., if you look at such ways of events in religions, a blog will be an inappropriate place to write about it. You might not be very happy with this discussion but I do not see a logic why a prayer at a particular time or place makes it heard better when every particle of this universe and every moment of time is designed by the same GOD.
Sometimes promotions takes shape of shifting incentive for buying, discounts or financial or non-financial, the small pouch of milk with coffee or an opener with the Beer bottle(though that must have been a long time ago !!).
The very basic of marketing 4Ps with respect to market a product is done above, it is my sincere hope that you liked it, but marketing something that shapes the course of human civilization for ever is far from over. We are talking about the world’s most complex entity- for certain GOD is not a product, you can never see it, neither can you talk to dead to see if they are happy in heaven or punished at Hell.
GOD is the most complex service in this world and its inception came in era where human intelligence and knowledge was naive.
Now let us see the distinct points that makes marketing an intangible Service one of the most spectacular and challenging phenomena of marketing. Quite surprisingly how religions do not miss a P.
Going forward, as the product marketing rests on its four Ps, service marketing utilizes three more Ps to connect with the minds of the customers.
PEOPLE – No Service can establish without the people those provide the service. Not only does it matter whom you recruit and how well you train them, it is all about the face of your service, sometimes they are the service.
I have always wondered why religious faith always puts a prayer man to get your messages through to god. Why priests do not live the way we do, do not look, eat, the way normal people do, the way nature designed things for the usual lot. Apart from being a priest on the basis of discipline, knowledge there are religions which openly claim that few families/casts are closer to god and hence have the power to communicate with GODS and make your prayer reach them. All these unfair questions, now that I think I know .. they are only doing their JOBS!
PROCESS - To define it is a series of activities which place while a service is being delivered to you. Could be very covert internal like banking or could have high involvement of the customer example – remember when your childhood hair cut, how you and your barber struggled to keep your head steady, even better the gym trainer made you shorten your breaks between push ups. The fun of this is when you see services so evolved that the process itself is the better part of the service, consider the example “theme parties”.
So what am I getting to is that this GOD that we are talking about whole of the time has a very essential need to have process associated with it. You can mess it up, I have seen people getting very furious about process of prayers, but you would notice that the same prayers are done on the same day with different processes in different places and cultures, our country is especially blessed with such diversity. There is very less explanation why you face east or west, open palms or closed, especially when all prayers are meant to reach to a single place and our current intelligence does not where ?
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE – Last and the most striking feature amongst all of the above points of discussion. Very interestingly this has been the greatest debates of the divided religious camps.
Physical Evidence basically refers to the physical features that come as a part of the service. Think the time you went to a restaurant with your boy/girlfriend, they served you great food and you paid a very reasonable bill, is it over, NO ! You would mind the AC, the sofa, the floors, walls, washroom, cutlery and also Manners of the attendant (that is part of people). All of the above are examples of physical evidence, these things have existence which you touch, feel, see or measure.
That is the most important feature that service marketers sometimes develop to get a good association points for the service that could not be felt otherwise. So that brings us to the answer of question why associations to idols, prayer-place architectures, if I may call them materialistic links. When almost all icons and prophets lived a very simple and austere life, why do we build golden idols after them. Why this world reserves most humble lifestyle only for the old and widows.
It is all in the statement “JO DIKHTA HAI, WOHI BIKTA HAI .. !”(Only what looks good, sells).
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I hope you have continued till here, I request you to go back again to read the disclaimer and understand that I do not in anyways mean to hurt any feelings. I am convinced that the world with all sorts of religions are a much better and fairer place to live than without it.
However this is my honest and most humble way of understanding and express my understanding, hope you would respect it.
Talking off
Rajdeep
