THE CURRENT FADING OF BRAND NAME "THE WATCHTOWER" (page 5)

LisaRose

It's just putting lipstick on a pig, nobody under 40 is going to be impressed because they now have a website.

steve2

Apt retort LisaRose. First there's the huge investment in rebranding and second, there's the outcome. The expectation

that rebranding will "turn around" organizational sluggishness will have an open-ended time frame to produce "results". The clock ticks on and on.

Trouble is, end-times religions end up in a bind: Yes, urgency sure does keep members awake and active - but only up to a point. When urgency is played out endlessly, it raises the faith-sapping question, Urgent for what purpose? An end that never arrives is plain problematic. Among other things, it induces quiet despair in even the most zealous. This is precisely why end-times religions are compelled to widen their focus if they want to have any claim to relevance - which changes the purpose from end-times to...lifestyle oriented?

For examples of end-times religions broadening their purpose, right under the noses of their adherents look at Latter-Day Saints and Seventh-Day Adventists - two very different "Christian" apocalyptic focused religions who have in common a progressive toning down the last days rhetoric and focusing instead on lifestyle issues.

So watch JW.org follow the paths of two slightly older religious groups and focus increasingly on lifestyle issues and, by contrast, tone down the end-times rhetoric. This has already happened to a degree: The firebrand expose of false religion and urgent end-times announcements of the old 1920s and 1930s Watch Tower publications have given way to more toned-down messages on how to live your life. Watch this 'Reader's Digesting' of the organization occur more and more under the cosily modern JW.org brand - and right under the noses of the witnesses.

Vidiot

Well said, steve2.

You're right; the key for a religious denomination to survive and thrive in the 21st Century is mainstreaming; i.e., abandoning exclusivity, apocalypticism, homophobia, creationism, and shunning; embracing transparency and open forum discussion, etc.

Which is why (among other things) the WTS simply cannot authentically mainstream...

...if they did all those things they'd no longer be Jehovah's Witnesses.

The WTS is stuck in a paradigm it cannot get out of.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

"It's just putting lipstick on a pig, nobody under 40 is going to be impressed..."

I dunno. Maybe if you also put some JW.org earrings on the pig there might be something.

Calebs Airplane

How's this for rebranding?

steve2

You might be onto something Billy - from certain angles that porcine lip-stick wearer looks kinda alluring. The earrings could turn more than minds.

Caleb, the rebranding you suggest is actually closer to the mark of what the organization's Watchtower's purpose is: Monitoring of the rank and file "prisoners" - under the watchful eye of Mother.

JWdaughter

Terry, when I was in the org during the 70's and early 80's, the appellation of JW was disapproved of also. I don't remember specifically, officially being told it, but I do remember being informally censured about it more than once. I am certain it was 'taught' at some point by someone in authority in the congregation or at an assembly or convention. For some reason I am thinking Kent Meridian HS. . . but I was under 10 when we still went to the local HS's. That would make it pre-'75, and a fuzzy memory:)

Pterist

JW.OMG ........(for JW idolaters)

stuckinarut2

JW.ORGY

JW.BORG

These are still my favourite two!

Yes, I reckon it will be a monumental day...but I reckon it is coming (just like the "day of Jehovah") when the Watchtower Magazine and Awake Magazine get rolled into one small monthly magazine called JW.ORG

THE CURRENT FADING OF BRAND NAME "THE WATCHTOWER"

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