Archive - October, 2009
Brilliant Where’s Wally advertisement
For communication to be effective, it must be clear.
The latest series of print advertisements by BPAY are a great example of clear and effective communication.
What is being communicated in this advertisement?
Using BPAY is easy.
That’s the message. And because ease of use is something that appeals to us all (especially when it comes to paying bills!), communicating clearly that a product will be easy to use and make life easier will speak powerfully to many people.
Is BPAY ‘almost too easy’? I’ve no idea. Have the ads caused me to try out BPAY? Absolutely.
What’s the lesson?
It isn’t that Christians should run a print campaign with the line “Being a Christian is almost too easy”.
No, the lesson is that in all our communication (verbal, written, online, etc) we should think hard about what it is that we would like to communicate, and how we can do that most clearly. Sometimes fewer words will have greater impact. Usually, limiting ourselves to one message (even when lots of other messages are equally worthy of promotion) will be more effective.
Below are two other ads that have been developed for this campaign:
A new type of search engine emerges
Sure, I’m a child of my generation, but I find it hard to remember a time without Google. I asked a friend last week ‘does anyone use search engines other than Google anymore’? They still do (see this recent research from AC Nielsen) but Google is by far the dominant search engine and the first place people many go looking for information. An article in this month’s Wired magazine explored a new type of search engine that offers a completely different model of searching. Clive Thompson explains:
“For more than 10 years, Google has organised the Web by figuring out who has authority. The company measures which sites have the most links pointing to them – crucial votes of confidence – and checks to see whether a site grew to prominence slowly and organically, which tends to be a marker of quality…But the real-time Web behaves in almost the opposite fashion. It’s all about ‘trending topics’ [e.g. a plane crash] – which by their very nature generate a massive number of links and postings within minutes. And a search engine can’t spend days deciding what is the most crucial site or posting; people want to know immediately.” (‘Live in the moment’, October 2009, page 44)
These search engines seek to make available what people are saying on any given topic at the current time, often with a particular emphasis on what social media channels (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) are saying. The article cites a number of search engines (and I’ve included a couple of others) that have emerged to meet this need for real-time information on trending topics:
It seems that Google is keeping up with, and even staying ahead of the game. Social media website Mashable reported earlier in October on ‘Google launches 9 new ways to search‘. If you do a search on Google you will see at the top of the results page a plus symbol (+) with the words ‘show options’. This will provide the following options (click to enlarge):
What are the implications for ministry? A couple of uses come to mind:
- track what people are saying about outreach campaigns such as Jesus: All About Life,
- track what people are saying about your church/ministry,
- track what people are saying about Jesus (and if you’re feeling brave, chime in to address any incorrect views!),
- track the issues and concerns people are expressing about your suburb/parish and consider how your church could positively respond
Can you think of any other ministry uses for this type of real-time search?
Winners of Christian Audio giveaway
Last month on Communicate Jesus and SydneyAnglicans.net I ran a promotion in association with christianaudio – ‘Audio books for mobile spiritual encouragement‘. 10 commenters would be picked at random and win a gift voucher to the online store. The winners are:
- Bob Thurlow
- Luke Thomson
- Craig Schwarze
- Kirsty McNamara
- Joanna
- Amanda Farrelly
- Kevin Goddard
- David Pinn
- Nate Swift
- John Driver
Congratulations to you all! I will send each of you an email with the details for redeeming your voucher.
Don’t forget to check out the free audio book available each month too – this month it’s ‘Just Courage’ by Gary A Haugen.
Thanks once again to christianaudio for participating in this promotion.
Register now for Create conference 2009!
Several weeks ago I encouraged you to put aside Saturday 14 November. Here’s the very good reason why you should do this:
Last year was great, this year will be even better. “Come along and spark with others. Be inspired to the great task of communicating Jesus to the world. See what other churches and ministries are doing. Create is a conference to help you learn how to communicate more effectively to a changing world.” Some of the areas covered include:
- marketing,
- visual design,
- public relations,
- internet/web design and strategy,
- writing,
- copyright,
- place and space,
- and much more!
Where to next?
- Check out the website and download the brochure (they are visually impressive masterpieces in their own right!)
- Register for the conference
- Check out the program
- Subscribe to the blog
- Follow on Twitter and Facebook
Register by 29 October for a $10 discount, and receive a further $10 discount if two or more people attend from the same church or ministry organisation.
So what are you waiting for? Grab a like-minded friend, and register now!
Dangers of pop culture illustrations?
Romans 7:21-25 describes the daily struggle to live for God in a way that is (not surprisingly) so true for my own experience:
“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
This video clip from Lord of the Rings illustrates this daily battle between the old nature and the new:
I can really empathise with Smeagol sometimes! Can you think of any other well-known pop culture illustrations for key Biblical truths?
Because stories and illustrations from pop culture are often (sadly) better known than the Bible, I think they can be helpful in introducing or reinforcing a point. However, they clearly have their limits. What do you see (or have you experienced) as the dangers of using pop culture examples, such as this Lord of the Rings clip, to introduce and reinforce a point?
Last month John Piper responded to the question “What are your thoughts on drama and movie clips in church services?”. You can read the transcript here, or watch the video here.
Piper says: “I think the use of video and drama largely is a token of unbelief in the power of preaching. And I think that, to the degree that pastors begin to supplement their preaching with this entertaining spice to help people stay with them and be moved and get helped, it’s going to backfire. It’s going to backfire.”
Do you agree with him?
