Religious Brand Equity

I am neither an atheist nor an agnostic, but after experiencing and knowing the commercialisation of religion I couldn't stop myself from writing this. It may be blasphemous but sorry people these are the most honest views that I have about religion of the day.

In today's economy, religion is a best-seller. Oil prices, inflation, recession, world economy taking turns, stock markets' upheaval none of it has even a miniscule impact on the Religion Inc. Although there are no statistics available but surely it is an industry that continues to grow, at a rate surpassing each year.

I happened to attend an economics lecture in first year of engineering and the professor discussed the B-Plan of a replica of Vaishno Devi temple in Ahmedabad. Realising the profits the temple generated, the conceiver (read owner) of the idea was planning another replica-temple in the region. Moral of the story, religion is serious business.

I have utmost respect to the religious organisations who work for the benefit of the society, education, up-bringing of orphans etc, but at the same time there are many which, under the name of religion, make a mockery of it. There are religious communities and sects who have started branding themselves with marketing concepts- take 4Ps for instance.

Product Differentiation: Promote themselves as having the largest pure gold idol of god
Place: Provide comforty ambience to people, amusement parks in the temple premises, food courts
Price: Although there is usually no entry fee in temples, but most of the times people are lured into religious acts by the priests (read marketing executives) and made to shell out a large amount.
Promotion: There is no major temple or a religious body in India which doesn't have a website of its own.

And this is not the end of it. Temples and their managing organisations have tied up with banks for online donations, prasad delivery and even booking for an early meeting (read skipping the queue) with the almighty. The money that goes into this religious system is hardly accounted for and probably parallel money or another RBI is running across the country.

Adding to it, religion is also keeping pace with any other business domain in the world. If globalisation is the most talked about issue in the world, religion is not lagging behind. Temples are going global with their branches (read offices) opening in major cities of the world, with headquarter of course in India. With revenues and forex pouring in from all over the world, when the rupee rises against the dollar certainly temples must be getting a hit in their annual balance sheet and forex reserves depleting each time rupee weakens.

What's in store for us?
In years to come, we may find online temples where the GenNext would pay homage to the god by click of a button on a PAID internet website. We may find temples getting into shopping malls, or there may be temples branding themselves as Lifestyle products and targeting niche clientele.

I know it is exaggeration but still is it the religion that we believe in, and is it worth believing in the same? Is it necessary for us to have an organised religion? Or is it just another version of Hawala or a parallel money market?

I personally don't disbelieve in religion, or the religious practices. But for god's sake can't the caretakers of religion keep it clean?