This 3-minute film “retells the the birth of Christ via social media tools like Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as if it were experienced in 2010.”
It’s been viewed more than 9 million times. Have you seen it?
The video was created by a Portugese ad company, in an effort to show their clients what is possible with video, and the potential of viral videos. They certainly achieved that - and have received a lot of business as a result! You can read more about the story behind video here. A similar video was created by a Christian agency - ‘Social Network Christmas’.
I’m aware of the main objection Christians would have with this video - it explains the ‘what’ of Christmas, but doesn’t explain the ‘why’. I see this too, but to be fair, this wasn’t their intention in creating the video. What this video does highlight for us is the potential of this form of communication. This video spread like wildfire (‘virally’) for five reasons:
- it was short (it’s easy to spare 3 minutes to watch a video online).
- it was easy to share (sharing a link to a video is a skill children are now born with!).
- it was timely (distributed at a time when people are open to thinking about Christmas).
- it was relevant (it used illustrations that recent generations are familiar with).
- it was engaging (it was fast-paced, interesting, and kept you engaged until the end).
Now, imagine if a similar video had been created that also explained the ‘why’ of the Christmas message. What an effective commuication piece, to share with 9 million people why God came to dwell among us! Can you see the potential of creating a video like this? The genious in this medium is that it is now very easy to share content, and as I share with 10 friends, and those 10 friends share with 10 friends - the number of people exposed to the video grows exponentially. The best example in recent times is the video campaign by Old Spice - the main video has been viewed nearly 28 million times. You might also like to see a list of ‘top 10 most innovative viral videos of 2010’.
Most of us don’t have the creativity or skills required to create a gospel-centred, engaging, interesting, shareable video like this. But praise be to God - the body of Christ is diverse and God has gifted us with some brilliant Christian video producers in Australia (I’ve listed several on my website). Let’s encourage these people - in word, in prayer, and also with our wallets, to continue to creatively communicate the gospel using their skills in video production.
What might this look like?
If the Portugese ad company had created the video for a client, they would have charged a flat fee of $50,000. At that price, for 9 million views, you’ve got $0.06 per view. That’s a pretty good return on investment, don’t you think?
So imagine if the Sydney Anglican churches each put in, and paid for a video like this to be produced. Using rough estimates, this would $186 per church or $125 per congregation - and obviously much less if other churches from different denominations and around the country also pitched in.
Seems like a small price to pay to make use of a far-reaching opportunity to share the gospel.
