The rebrand of Paradise Church to Influencers Church to Futures Church ranks amongst some of the most bewildering and high level branding missteps I have observed.
Back at some point in the noughties, the well known Adelaide church Paradise suddenly retired its name. Running to Paradise was out. Being an Influencer was in.
At the time, I hated the rebrand to Influencers Church. Then for a while as social media exploded it became funny. But this more recent misstep to Futures Church has left my brain buzzing.
Rebranding costs. That cost becomes shackled to the working class peeps faithfully filling thE oFfering buckeT each weekend. It’s a cliché, but it’s real.
Some guy up front pleads for money-and-hard-wires-your-brain-that-giving-unlocks-your-future-wealth, or your best life, or whatever the latest buzz phrase is.
Then your hard-earned is used on designers, marketers, content producers, event planners, web developers, printers and merch touters. Hype, mics, sound, music, visuals and LED. All on the rebrand brand wagon.
Now we’ve got our new low-go it’s time for Influencers Church to be promoted with energy, force and vigour! It quickly catches on. Farmer, sheepdog, paddock, sheep. You get the picture. Pretty soon and they’re all baaa’ing to the same four-chord song.
The name Influencers Church succeeded in sounding wannabe, on trend, arrogant, stupid, ambitious, consumeristic, embarrassing and basic – all at the same time. Quite an astonishing feat.
Funny how this grouping of adjectives were precursors of many memes to come.
Imagine the slow dread that descended on leadership as their God-given, fasted and prayed about, invested in and divinely-inspired word, gradually took on a whole new meaning as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok exploded with a universal cultural force that has been astonishing.
The Influencers phenomena was curious. Then maybe kinda cool for a bit. Before it became a fad and a growing trend. Today those who display the moniker are often scorned, despised, mocked, hated and belittled.
All these adjectives seem apt and yet somehow Influencers are coveted by tired eyes as AI-boosted likenesses are swiped and ogled by half the planet. The power of the backlit pixel, it really is quite stunning.
Honestly? The Influencer cutie pics that stopped me dead in my tracks were from halfwits posing in front of Auschwitz. Who are these people?
I want to hang out with an Influencer at a wedding. Influence me! Watcha got? Oh, I meant in a conversation! Why’s your phone out? Oh you want to take a photo and tag me? But hang on we’re on the same table… wouldn’t we just talk?
Watching this culture emerge, I couldn’t wait for Influencers Church to destroy the English language and choose a new new name. Again.
Maybe they should have gone with New Paradise.
The decision to leave Paradise behind was at a time when Influencers Church spread its wings and became global; as global as Adelaide and Atlanta can be, anyway. There were no scandals, no dodgy money stories and no leadership trystes that drove the rebrand. I have to assume the Paradise name wasn’t fit for multi-campus worldwide ambition.
If only they’d stayed the course. Paradise wasn’t a terrible name. Named after the suburb it’s in, Paradise doubled as something cool, as well as eternal. It fit the Evangelical narrative perfectly. As a word, Paradise feels fresher now than ever.
Fresh brands create hype and lead trends. The search for originality is on for young and old and driving a huge amount of cultural change. Try spending some time at a domain reseller.
But it’s the long tail of work that defines every brand in the end.
One thing I’ve observed – you have to handle what you’ve been given, your DNA, with care. And that isn’t a comment about brands or institutions. That is a comment about people, about life.
Once upon a time, everyone and everything was not. And then it was. And when it was, it took a certain form. And that form takes its shape from DNA. The real stuff, and the informal, soulful and guttural stuff. You know, the stuff that makes us who we are.
Play around with what you began with at your peril. It defines who you become.
And yes, that includes your name.
In the curious case of Influencers Church, they were crazily unlucky as the horrid word was yanked from their grasp and became a runaway cultural freight train.
Say Influencers, and no-one is thinking church.
So let’s rebrand to Futures Church.
The problem is – say Futures, and no-one is thinking church.
Stunningly, we now have a new new name that when uttered, evokes trading, wealth building, Wall Street, greed, inequality, the GFC and dare I say it – Margot and Leo.
The word Futures, for this group of people, has now been burdened with a whole bunch of ambitious church activity, without history or DNA. And it now has to carry that weight of activity as well as constantly withstand being linked to financial markets.
And they knew that before they signed off on it!
There is a stupidity to both Influencers and Futures that is face palm material. There’s no other way to say it.
It’s easy to speculate on how these names were arrived at. You could surmise about the inward-looking Christian bubble that is a hot house for all sorts of weirdness. Or the shallowness of the modern prosperity church movement.
But are these links to competing cultural forces – Futures or Influencers – really the elephants in the room here? I don’t think so.
Both names leave you with a feeling of striving, rather than that of confidence. One of the bedrocks of Christianity is acknowledging you’re tethering yourself to a God who always was and always will be. The uncertain parts of these names, in that context, don’t work.
There is a search for identity going on even as they’ve tried to put a stake in the ground.
They’ve mucked around with their DNA and ended up in a mess.
Had they kept the name Paradise, their ongoing body of work in each community they occupy would still be associated with that name. And that legacy would continue to build.
Do great things, and the name will become great.
But these are meaningless and pointless musings.
Until their next rebrand, it’s Futures Church.
Nee Influencers. Nee Paradise.
