President Trump and Pope Francis Really Understand Their Markets
“President Trump and Pope Francis have little in common,” Time observed in anticipation of the first meeting between the two leaders last week. While this may be true superficially, the president and the pope have something very important in common: They understand their markets.
From an economic perspective, these two men are both supplying something — call it a message — based on real demand. Love them or hate them, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church and the leader of the Free World are men of their time in ways that, say, Pope Emeritus Benedict and former presidential hopeful Mitt Romney are not. They “get” that the market has shifted, and they are offering something accordingly.
Cardinal Charles Chaput’s latest book, Strangers in a Strange Land, speaks to a cultural crisis brought on by what his subtitle calls a “post-Christian World.” The essential point is that a growing number of people simply have no faith. This means the “market” for the faithful has shifted; and, until recently, few were speaking directly to this market.
Without a buyer, there’s no product. What a marketer does is go out and find and attract the buyer.
A marketer identifies the market and tries to hit on the message that will most resonate with the largest pool of potential buyers. If a market shifts, the message needs to adapt accordingly. Good marketers will not overwhelm buyers with too much information up front. Instead, they disseminate bits of appealing and digestible information through different channels in an effort to draw prospective buyers in. Once a buyer is “in” — in your establishment, on your website, etc. — the marketer can provide more detailed information, but still won’t reveal the whole picture.
Only after a prospect “converts” — this is the business term — to become a customer does a company reveal more about its product’s complexities and issues. At that point, a competent marketer will keep tabs on customers (as well as the market of future potential buyers) in order to ensure they remain loyal. In addition to messaging, this means knowing product weaknesses and working with those internally to convey customer frustrations — and being strong enough to encourage change when it is needed.
If a company has good marketing and a good product, it will more easily increase its buyer base as well as retain existing customers.
Considered in this light, what Pope Francis has done is not water down Catholic doctrine, much less change it. On the contrary, he has taken a survey of the current market for souls, as it were, and, finding that it has shifted, adjusted the message to meet current market demand. If you can’t get people through the door, what good does it do to fret over the finer points of the message sent out to draw them in? As Christian apologist C.S. Lewis often argued, you don’t quibble over the nuances of Christianity with outsiders.
Yes, Pope Francis is the Roman Catholic Church’s Chief Marketing Officer. He is out to recruit souls, and he’s less worried about watering down the messaging a bit than with getting prospective buyers through the door. He wants the message to go viral.
Sometimes an organization needs better execution; sometimes it needs better operations. Pope Francis — and the cardinals who elected him — are betting the Church needs better marketing. It needs a way to reach a larger pool of potential buyers while understanding the frustrations of the faithful and offering strong enough leadership to catalyze change.
During the 1970s, the Vatican relied on then Bishop Bergoglio for a very different task, to maintain the independence of the Jesuit order in Argentina when Liberation Theology was on the rise. Now, as Pope, he is performing the necessary task at hand: Marketing the message of the Church to a broader base of prospective Christians.
The name he chose is significant here. In St. Francis’ time, the Church was deeply suffering. Francis and his followers wandered from town to town singing joyfully and infusing the suffering Church with what it needed: a sense of wonder and beauty. Their songs went “viral” (we still sing them today).
Today, using Twitter and other modern forms of communication — and by gently ignoring the many simplistic interpretations (or even falsifications) of his teachings in the popular media — Pope Francis is following in the footsteps of his namesake. He is infusing the Church with a palpable message of love and forgiveness. And by allowing that message to go viral, he’s encouraging a new market to buy as well as investing in a future, larger market.
Pope Francis’ approach might frustrate his more dedicated flock — those who preferred the analytical prose of Ratzinger or the deep theological teachings of Pope Saint John Paul II. And there is always the danger that by trying to invigorate a broader base, the pontiff will alienate this demographic, who worry that the medium is becoming the message. Like all good marketers, the pope must find a way to broadcast the message widely without misrepresenting (much less transforming) the product, while still attending to the Church’s loyal customers.
Trump has taken an analogous approach to American politics by speaking to a demographic left behind by a shifting political landscape. During the campaign, he tailored his message to voters who felt alienated from the political process. Love him or hate him, Trump succeeded in doing something none of his competitors could: he got these prospective buyers in the door.
From this perspective, while the two have many differences, President Trump and Pope Francis — these two men of our times — should have had much to discuss.
