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The familiar gold, blue and white logo labels everything from a radio station to a dating service, a mutual fund to a foundation, a law school to a missionary group.

Much has been made of the unprecedented Ave Maria town development in eastern Collier County, anchored by a new university that shares its name. But both the town and university are just home base for a larger movement. Religious marketing experts are calling Ave Maria America’s first Catholic lifestyle brand.

In the space of a couple hours, you can listen to the radio, invest on Wall Street, find a date and take a class all under the Ave Maria umbrella.

ERIK KELLAR / Daily News

From dating services to wig shops, the gold, blue and white logo is cropping up on a number of businesses, all hoping to cash in on the Ave Maria name.

“They’re using the Ave Maria brand to give themselves access to a mainline market,” said Peter Maresco, author of a forthcoming book “The Business of Christianity” and an assistant professor at Sacred Heart (Conn.) University.

Using the Ave Maria name for different products and services “strengthens” the brand, Maresco added.

“It makes perfect sense,” he said. “Once you get them in, you don’t let them go.”

The Ave Maria pull has become so strong that some Ave Maria developments have struggled to define themselves in more than Catholic terms. And Ave Maria’s name recognition and mission are making converts of unaffiliated organizations which seemingly have little connection to the conservative Catholic religion and politics promoted by brand founder Tom Monaghan. For Exhibit A look no further than Ave Maria Wigs, a business registered with Florida’s division of corporations.

Mainstream America awoke to the buying power of religious demographics when Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” burst into movie theaters three years ago and made nearly $400 million. Gibson, a traditionalist Catholic, struck a nerve that Evangelical Christians have explored to the greatest effect. Joel Osteen and Rick Warren have become best-selling authors, television personalities, multimillionaires and pastors of churches that attract legions of followers and diverse product lines bearing their smiling faces.

In his book, Maresco discusses Christian toys — think talking Jesus action figures — and the Christian Wrestling Federation, both designed to give religious appeal to secular services.

“The whole thing is that business people have realized the Christian demographic is huge,” Maresco said. “This is a multibillion-dollar industry. The market is out there for everything.”

The 65 million adherents to Roman Catholicism make up the largest single body of Christians in the country, but have not had brands break into the mainstream. Perhaps that’s because the more hierarchical tenants of Catholicism leave less room for freelancing, or perhaps because no one has had Monaghan’s celebrity or business pedigree.

Monaghan, who declined an interview request for this story through his Cleveland-based public relations firm, helped pioneer the restaurant franchising movement with his Domino’s Pizza chain. Domino’s eventually became a $1 billion business before Monaghan sold it in 1998 and dedicated his life to the church. Monaghan, 70, first used the Ave Maria name in 1983 founding the Ave Maria Foundation charity. Ave Maria took off as a brand in 1999, when Monaghan applied for the first of his 10 active trademarks with “Ave Maria” in the title.

And Monaghan has looked to some of his Protestant peers for advice on brand building. Monaghan has mentioned consulting the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a shrewd marketer in addition to a pastor and founder of Liberty University, about creating an online learning presence.

“As far as I know, Ave Maria is a uniquely Catholic form of this type of branding,” said Mara Einstein, author of the book “Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age” and an assistant professor at Queens (N.Y.) College.

The Ave Maria University logo has been used in modified forms on other Tom Monaghan-founded organizations bearing the Ave Maria name.

George Schwartz, manager of Michigan-based Ave Maria Mutual Funds, said the name Ave Maria has been “a big plus” for his organization.

“I think it does have cache and credibility,” he said. “People assume from the name that it’s not a fly-by-night organization.”

Monaghan approached Schwartz in 2001 to start a series of Catholic mutual funds, which began with a $25 million investment from Monaghan. The six funds in the group now are valued at $600 million, Schwartz said, and the flagship Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund outgained the S&P 500 Index by more than 2 percent during the first half of this year. The funds began by investing in companies that didn’t contribute to abortion-rights groups, but have expanded to eliminate those that provide unmarried partner benefits among other factors.

The funds also support Monaghan-approved businesses. As of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Ave Maria funds combined owned more than 400,000 shares — worth nearly $6 million — of Pulte Homes, the primary residential builder in Ave Maria town.

But could “Ave Maria,” a name which signifies the Virgin Mary be too successful as a Catholic brand? Barron Collier Cos., Monaghan’s partner in Ave Maria town’s development, spent the better part of this year trying to convince skeptics that Ave Maria was not a “Catholic town.” That effort kicked into high gear after Monaghan’s now-disavowed comments relating town restrictions on pornography and contraception became widely publicized.

A town promotional pamphlet uses the slogan “Every Family. Every Lifestyle. Every Dream” and has pictures of a young family, an African-American couple and retirees on the cover. Inside the word “Catholic” is nowhere to be found. Instead it reads: “Here, families, students and retirees of any race, background or ethnicity will live and thrive in a beautiful environment.”

Blake Gable, a Barron Collier vice president, said the town’s name was almost an afterthought.

“Early on it was very, very logical,” he said. “The university is very, very important to the town so it just made sense to name it Ave Maria. It’s not any more complicated than that.”

Regarding the “Catholic town” moniker, Gable is clearly tiring of the discussion.

“I could walk around here with a sandwich board that says Naples is only a place for white guys named Blake,” he said. “That doesn’t make it true.”

But Einstein, the “Brands of Faith” author, said the town’s name represents almost a “Faustian bargain.” The town receives the mainstream recognition and credibility within the Catholic community, but also finds it difficult to escape Catholic connotations.

“The immediate connection for people is that it’s the ‘Catholic town’,” Einstein said. “It’s going to be very hard to get away from that.”

The positive news for Monaghan and Barron Collier is that they have significant control over the name “Ave Maria” through the sheer number of trademarks owned by Monaghan and the increasing public affiliation of “Ave Maria” with Monaghan-associated organizations.

Should someone be so bold as to start an “Ave Maria Pornography” business, Monaghan could sue under anti-confusion or anti-dilution trademark protections, according to Michelle Burke, a trademark attorney with the firm McDermott, Will & Emery in Chicago.

“The more diverse you are, the easier it is for the trademark owner to claim confusion if someone starts an unaffiliated business,” Burke said.

Those protections haven’t stopped some from piggybacking on the Ave Maria name and likeness. Gable said Barron Collier’s attorneys have sent letters to two or three businessmen who were using unauthorized Ave Maria images to promote businesses on Web sites.

Jeffrey Janiero, a North Naples attorney, has registered two businesses with the state’s division of corporations: Ave Maria Wigs and Ave Maria Handyman. It is unclear how fake hair has anything to do with Catholicism. And Janiero wasn’t helpful in clearing up the matter. Reached by telephone, he suggested he had the university’s approval to use the names, but needed to contact the school before agreeing to an interview. He couldn’t be reached later for further comment. A university spokesman said the school had no affiliation with Ave Maria Wigs nor Ave Maria Handyman.

Other third parties have bought into the entire Ave Maria concept. James Bohrer sells real estate in Ave Maria town under the name Ave Maria Real Estate and Home Services. A Catholic and graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, an Ohio school similar to Ave Maria, Bohrer said the name has a “sacred value.”

“It’s kind of a different name for a real estate company,” he said. “You’ve got ReMax and other places that are purely secular. With the concept for a company I’m looking at, how much money you make isn’t the primary goal. It’s the community.”

Bohrer, who said he has met and was inspired by Monaghan, added he believes Ave Maria signifies a spiritual trend rather than simply a marketing term.

“There’s a movement or grassroots idea out there for conservative Catholics,” Bohrer said. “I think that’s what’s on Tom Monaghan’s mind. He’s collecting these people together.”

Next to a display for Monaghan’s 1986 autobiography “Pizza Tiger” in Ave Maria University’s town center bookstore is what looks to be an orange medical prescription bottle. On sale for $18.99 is actually a pedometer packed inside a bottle. It was Mongahan’s idea, the clerk explains. The bottle’s label recommends 5,000 steps a day and lists the “side effects” from the pedometer’s use.

“Use of this product,” the label reads, “combined with an AMU education and the regular reception of the Sacraments could result in a perfect balance of body, mind and soul.”