It’s a belief-system, it’s a political heavyweight, it’s a marketing tool. Two weeks ago ComBlu released a new nine-step marketing model called The Evangelist Effect(TM), which relies on “customer evangelism” and Word-of-Mouth testimony. Today Martin Lindstrom, author of Brand Sense: Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound, speaks with WNYC’s Leonard Lopate about the growing similarities between branding and religion, with advertisers increasingly seeking to capitalize on ritual, from the Olympics to the David Beckham Buddha in Thailand to the proper pouring of a Guinness.