Branded!

What business can teach you about God's purpose for your marriage

By Caryn Rivadeneira

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Knowing how much I love to meddle in other people's business—literally—my husband, Rafi, handed me a packet of papers and asked, "Could you help me brainstorm some of my branding stuff later?" I glanced at the question-striped sheets and the paragraphs of what amounted to Branding Your Business 101 and nodded. "You bet!"

So later, over the course of an hour-long drive to the in-laws, we worked through some questions meant to help uncover his business's "brand"—that marketing buzz word, which according to the papers means, "the practice of creating an identity and an experience that reflects the mission, culture, and personality of your organization."

But as is often the case in our lives as parents, two fighting kids and a crying baby derailed our productive and enlightening brainstorm. While we took a break, my thoughts wandered around this whole notion of branding. As I glanced over the sheets, I wondered—out loud—"If branding's so important for business success, what do you think good branding would do for our marriage?"

Amid the background of kids' crabbing and crying, my frustrated husband looked at me, rolled his eyes, and said, "Who knows."

While that ended that conversation, my question stayed with me. After all, for years, I've read about the importance of a couple having a "mission statement" and working toward a shared dream or "vision." That's language right out of business school, so why not take it to the next level with branding? You might say (and I will) that this means that a marriage in the business of something is a marriage on the road to success. And whatever business a marriage is in, doggone it, it needs branding! Or so the marketing gurus say.

The whole point of a business having a mission and a vision is to rally the troops, right? To get everybody fired up about whatever their business is. In the best sense, these things unite workers (though maybe not in a Communist Manifesto sort of way) in their purpose and strengthen their relationship with and understanding of each other within the context of that purpose. But that's all internal. Branding pushes all that out the door. It takes the unified company to the streets—into the community it sets out to serve.

So what about that wouldn't work for marriage? Why wouldn't we want to know what "business" we're in, get each other fired up about that vision, rally around our mission, and start serving the world? Why wouldn't we, as a couple, want to create an "identity and an experience that reflects the mission, culture, and personality of …"—um, our marriages?

I wanted to! So I emailed a couple experts to see what this might look like. The first was Tim Ellens, president of Change Design Group in Darien, Illinois, and a friend from church who gave my husband the packet that got this all rolling. (I should credit him now, as well, for that definition of branding). The other was Dave Goetz, president of CZ Marketing in Wheaton, Illinois, and a good friend and former colleague who introduced me to the concept of branding.

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Originally published in: Marriage Partnership, 2008, Spring, Page 28

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