AUDIO
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Archbishop Peter Jensen's Christmas Message 2011 on the centrality of Jesus to human history
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The JAAL ads are now on TV, and I suspect I’m not the only one who is pleasantly surprised by how good they are. They’ve certainly caught the attention of secular media, and there has been plenty written and said about the relationship between advertising and Christianity. Many within the church have found this a vexing topic, and are uncomfortable with the use of marketing language and techniques. But the issue really boils down to this - what is the best way to spread the message of Jesus?
In his classic book, “Know and Tell the Gospel”, John Chapman shares the following story:
Several years ago in the Department of Evangelism for which I worked, we considered making some television programs. The cost of the proposal was so high that our budget for the whole year would have been used in the first month.
We sought the advice of a specialist in marketing, and were told: “No-one who had the manpower which you have available would ever spend money on television advertising. They would use the money to train people to talk to other people about the product.”
So we did - and so should your church, fellowship or Christian group.
I suspect that TV advertising has been on the nose in our church ever since. Now, evangelism has always involved one person telling the gospel to another, so it’s true that individual training must have first priority. But I reckon JAAL is showing us that a well executed mass-media campaign can be useful and effective as well. It puts Jesus and Christianity back on the popular radar, making it a little easier for Joe-Average-Christian to talk about.
The world of today is unimaginably different to the world of 30 years ago. Things that used to work may now need to be thrown out. And some old and discarded ideas may need to be looked at again.
Interesting, TV advertising was the "thing that worked" (read: dominant, effective marketing tool) thirty years ago! And it's beginning to look like it has past its peak of usefulness (television viewership is starting to fall here in Australia as it has been for the last five consecutive years in the US). If overseas trends are anything to go by, online social networking (and microblogging, ala Twitter, in particular) is where it's really at.
The church further commodifies its God to *sell* him in a world bloated and sick with commodification.
A regrettable move.
As uncomfortable as Craig's title may be, for the reasons you assert, what I think we are talking about is clear and intentional communication, not commodification. Besdies, I would have thought that 'Christian marketing' (as we are seeing with JAAL) is designed to subvert some of the materialist expectations that "commodification" implies.
The Jesus logo reminds me of some running shoe or soft drink. Jesus-as-Coke.
I wonder who's subverting whom.
@Grant, I take your point. But the alternative seems to be having Jesus slip off the public radar completely. Marketing Jesus doesn't necessarily mean turning him into a commodity. The danger is there, yes, but I don't think things will necessarily go that way.
Very true
Yep, and we need to be across that tech, for sure. But I think twitter participation rates are still pretty minuscule compared to TV audiences. TV will be pretty big for a lot of people for some time to come...
My pastor was talking to a guy last week and asked him if he had seen the JAAL ad's...the guy replied "I don't see any ad's - I have Tivo".
Perhaps the content will need to be content orientated (ala the Christ Files) rather than advertsing?
You are right. But the landscape is changing. Online advertising spend has already outstripped TV ad buy in the United Kingdom. This has to mean something. The stats show that 87% of advertisers believe the future of TV marketing is in product placement, not dedicated ads (as Jeff points out, owing in large degree to the penetration of DVR devices, and to growth of direct distribution channels - piracy included). While TV ads will be a big part of successful marketing strategy for some time to come, I would argue that we should be riding the front of the wave (ala Luther and the printing press) rather than getting buffeted around in everyone else’s wake (ala us and traditional news media).
Similarly, strictly speaking, the JAAL campaign cannot be defined as marketing because there is no product or service being promoted for sale at a financial price. The JAAL campaign has no financial profit motive. The JAAL campaign can instead be defined as both advertising and evangelism.
...
I heard a JAAL advertisement on the radio and I thought that it was very engaging, relatable and it even had me laughing out loud. I’m actually a pretty tough critic as a listener accustomed to voice artists pushing their products. In a media-driven world which makes a strong effort to ignore and marginalise Jesus Christ, the church and its message on His behalf at every possible opportunity, the JAAL campaign is definitely going to put Jesus Christ back on the public’s radar amid the quagmire of competing issues – the global financial crisis, climate change, swine flu, terrorism – all of which are bogus, manufactured issues without exception, none ofwhichareappropriateformetocommentonfurtherinthisblog.
Yeah, that's because it's the world. It hates Christ, as he observed. It's not going to turn around and like the church and its message because of a cute clutch of ads. Cosmetic, very cosmetic...
Not a lot of respect there for what concerns people. If all issues on the public's "radar" are "bogus...without exception" as you say, why do you think the radar won't taint Jesus bogus as well? You're seeking to muscle aside all these "manufactured" issues with...a Jesus-as-Coke ad campaign? Why is this necessary if the Anglican church and Anglicare have such traction with the community already, as you say?
*Look at us, look at us, we're all about Jesus! Please like us, please...we're funny, quirky, smart, savvy, deep, winsome, edgy, in short - the sh*t*
Is that *really* the message of this ad campaign? I just don't see that...
The campaign commenced with a "viral" component using these networks on September 15. A couple of weeks before the tv ads began the outdoor "ambient" section of the campaign began with signage going up at all participating churches. The tv campaign is just the third part and it does not end there. Churches are running evangelistic events and many, like ours have run courses in sharing the gospel so that our people are equipped to use the ads as a jumping off point for conversations. The campaign is not just the tv ads.
Understood. I was responding to Craig's emphasis on TV ads, and the way we SydAngs have been shy of using them. But you are right, and again I am thankful that JAAL is showing us the way to run a well planned comprehensive media campaign.
slightly different tact, real noise actually happens in response to the gospel being proclaimed.
Acts 19- there is a riot in response to Paul's persuasive preaching, because the whole economy is threatened by what he proclaims.
interestingly there is no sermon recorded but rather a precis is given by his opponents.
he says " their gods are no gods at all". (its worth asking what our opponents think we are saying!)
it would seem that real impact happens,
with ensuing social upheaval and transformation, when the idols of the culture are demythologized.
if JAAL contributes to the identification, exposition and demolition of idolotry - well and good.
and lets pray that our pastors are preaching and our personal relationships are demonstrating that the gods of our culture are no gods at all, because it seems that when that happens - the volume really gets turned up (as does the heat!).
Shane, not picking on you in particular, but I've been doing some thinking about how social networking might 'be utilised better' and I'm coming to the conclusion that it probably can't be utilised at a corporate level.
I think 'creating noise for Jesus' is, for now, still best done through mass media, although its power is diminishing (as has been noted by others above).
The strength of social media is that's it's all about the little guy - the inter-personal relationships between people who choose to network in that way. People don't (and don't want to) relate to organisations - and I include the church as an organisation - in the same way they relate to their friends. I can't (yet) see how spending money on a social media campaign would be worth it.
What we can do at a corporate level is to encourage our people to be more intentional about how they 'live' on-line so that Jesus is declared to their friends...not just which 70's movie character theyr'e most like :-P
I think you are probably right though I have noticed the ads on facebook who seem to target my desire for a slimmer, fitter, healthier me , and know that there are companies like switchedonmedia who are looking at marketing through social media.
if mass media is the (deminishing) way for creating noise, how do you think the diocese can chime in aside from JAAl?
Does anyone know what the "viral" component of JAAL actually involved? I don't think I saw anything of it at all?
Say I'm a programmer who has just written an online software tool for organising small groups, and I determine that SydAngs, being the most cashed up Christian group in the country, would make a good target audience. So what do I do? I throw together a cool launch site with interactive demos, and a nice (slightly quirky) youtube linked clip on the front page. And then I get on the email to Steve Kryger, offering him free access to 'check it out.' This is the beginning of my social networking campaign, because I know that if Steve likes it, the first thing he is going to do is write a brief blog entry, then tweet/facebook it to all his followers. Given that most of them follow Steve because they know he's a good source of useful church tech, they're going to follow his advice and check out the link. If they like it, they'll re-tweet to all their friends - or maybe even bring it up over that lunch conversation with a colleague. Given the few degrees of separation amongst SydAngs, it won't take long before most of the target audience has received a personal recommendation from a friend they trust.
Twitter campaigns work because they leverage targeted, personal, word-of-mouth recommendations. They bring the corporate down to the personal, bypassing the ingrained levels of mistrust that people assign to other modes advertising. Clever, no?
I agree with you that it can work, but I'm still doubtful about it at a true corporate level.
What you've described above is still done at a personal level. You as the programmer, not the software company you work for (sake of the argument assumption) has targeted Steve Kryger who is also an individual (Steve, I hope you don't mind us using you for the sake of the example).
He doesn't represent the organisation - in this case the Sydney Diocese - although he does have some standing in it and people value his opinion.
Steve's friends and followers don't mind him sending them info about your product because they already have a relationship with him and trust that he's not spamming them. I'm not sure people would have the same response if the info came from a software company they'd never heard of.
As an illustration of my thinking on this...if the Sydney Diocese was on Twitter, I doubt we'd get much of a following. But if the Archbishop was on Twitter, that would be a different thing altogether - even though he represents the Diocese and the tweets may contain much the same info.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think the key to using social media for the gospel is to get our people thinking strategically about it, not the amorphous body called the 'Diocese', although we (Anglican Media hat on) should be involved at some level.
I think you've understood correctly. Twitter campaigns aren't designed to get people to follow corporate entities (generally, that is; I'll speak to that in a moment). They are designed to bypass the anti-corporate logjam. This is their genius. The idea is for the company to target trusted individuals to do the actual advertising.
Having said that, it should be possible for larger entities (like the Diocese, or ANGLICARE for whom I work) to gain a following of their own. Let's postulate, for a moment, that the Diocese were to begin a social commentary blog. They post two, at the most three high quality articles a week that encourage Christians to not only think about, but to practically respond to the culture they live in. They launch a facebook page, a ning group, a youtube channel, a twitter account etc. - all linked, of course - whereby they start pushing out this information to potential followers. In effect, the Diocese markets itself as a useful expert source on the issue of cultural engagement. This way, over time, the broader global audience begins to see the SydAng Diocese as a reliable, trusted source on the issue. They listen when we tweet, because they know that we'll do so on topic, with good material.
The trick to micro-blogging is, as far as I can see it, quality posts within a very specific topical range. Too broad, and no one really follows you because you don't scratch where they itch. Low quality, and they won't even try.
The corollary to all of this is that Twitter becomes a reliable way to communicate around leadership logjams as well, because you go direct to the target audience. This is already changing the way influence is exerted (most of my friends account themselves more pastored by Mark Driscoll, for example, than their own rectors for this very reason). The real question is: are we going to leverage this to exert a growing sphere of influence, or will we continue to decline?
1. The campaign has not been funded by the Anglican church. Individual Christians and Bible Society have foooted the bill. Some churches have taken up an offertory, others have paid a $100 registration fee which hasn't met the cost of the TV campaign
2. The Viral campaign started with the Thank You Jesus aspect. Individuals were able to go online and upload a photo with caption which expressed their thanks
3. The Viral continues online with advertsing having been purchased on many popular pages
4. There have been visits to the website from over 108k unique visitors from over 112 countries
5. With over 1600 churches engaged in the campaign there is considerable engagement in the "marketplace" around the person of Jesus. Many significant conversations have been held. Many people have come off the street to attend an event where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been clearly proclaimed. The success of the campaign will only occur if "quiet Christians" start dialoguing with their friends and that dialogue may go on for many years to come before we see their complete understanding.
6. The amount of interest from the media has been phenomenal. Major radio and TV programs have all had something to say. One major secular talkback program even asked me directly "So what is the Christian faith all about?" I trust God was pleased with my response & it helped those exploring
7. Today Gen Y dialogue with the city in St Andrews Sq
I'm looking forward to many more with the workers of Sydney today as we work with Gen Y.
Why not come and join the conversation between 12 and 2 pm?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/future-face-of-the-dalai-lama-20091011-gse7.html