This year I’ve noticed a number of retailers using a ‘joy’ theme in their Christmas advertising. Here’s three – have you seen any others?
Thankfully, we know that the birth of Jesus offers a joy that far surpasses the temporary high of unwrapping a 27″ monitor.
Dell
David Jones
Country Road
Optus
Target
Ian shared this advertisement with me:
The advertisement is almost correct – there’s one person who is good enough for heaven, and praise God – he makes it possible for the rest of us no-hopers to make it in the front door. What sentiment do you think that advertisement is picking up on? I’m not sure where those ads were displayed – but how do you think they would have been received by Australians? There are a couple of other advertisements in the series that you can see on the Ads of the World website.
Advertising intrigues me. When done well, advertising is well researched and taps into the thoughts, attitudes and desires of a cross-section of the community. Some ads grab my attention because of what they reveal about the people they are seeking to connect with, and how they seek to motivate their audience to respond. Here are a couple of ads that have caught my attention. What ads have caught yours?
I was also interested to see recently that Alpha is using Bear Grylls to advertise its courses on Sydney Buses.
Sydney-siders are getting very familiar with Christian advertising on bus-related surfaces.
In September last year we had the posters in bus shelters across Sydney.
This year, as I noticed this morning, Alpha is promoting its courses in advertisements on buses. Man vs Wild star, Bear Grylls, is fronting the campaign that is appearing on buses in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
Read more about the campaign on the Alpha site, and on Peter Hallett’s blog.
Here’s an interview of Grylls about the impact of Alpha on his life:
And here’s a print ad that also makes use of Grylls:
I’m intrigued by advertisements because they are usually well researched and provide an insight into how a culture is thinking.
This advertisement from NRMA caught my eye because it has been getting a lot of positive mentions online. According to Mumbrella:
“The TV ad, created by Human, starts the real life couple 90-year-old Vic and 87-year-old Doreen. They say that after 70 years of marriage, they are still more in love than ever.”
In a world full of choice and infidelity, it’s nice (but not surprising) to see that loyalty in marriage is still well regarded and respected.
It also flies in the face of the advertising campaign of marriage-killer, Ashley Madison.
This is the second time I’ve seen additional incentives offered for child sponsorship.
The first was with Compassion (‘Uncomfortable about child sponsorship‘). The second I came across today, courtesy of Children International. This was the ad I saw on the Bible Gateway website:
If I sponsor Maria, I’ll get a free copy of Rick Warren’s ‘The Purpose Driven Life‘.
Here’s what I said last time I saw this technique being used:
“I’m all for getting more child sponsors, but something about this promotion made me feel a little uncomfortable. Perhaps I feel uncomfortable because this kind of promotion is so common in our world (e.g. “buy two pizzas, get a free coke and garlic bread”). Perhaps I feel uncomfortable because the intrinsic value of the children themselves should be a good enough incentive to sponsor a child. I can’t put my finger on it, but it just doesn’t sit well with me as a marketing strategy.”
I don’t feel any more comfortable with it 7 months on. How about you?
This is the advertisement currently being run on Google for dating agency/marriage destroyer, Ashley Madison (click to enlarge):
They also produced a television commercial for the Superbowl that was banned everywhere except Texas:
Ashley Madison isn’t just any online dating agency. Ashley Madison is a website that facilitates infidelity. Their slogan is: “Life is short. Have an affair.” It is a service that specifically targets married people in their advertising, and provides ‘attached’ as the first two options when you sign-up on their website:
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the founder, Noel Biderman:
calmly suggested that because many members are in sexless marriages but don’t actually want to leave their spouses, the company “preserves more marriages than we break up.”
What a spin – Biderman’s asserting that his website is actually a public service! I don’t know how marriages survived without him!
Sarcasm aside, the very premise of Ashley Madison’s slogan is wrong. Sure, life is short. But let’s not forget that after death, all will face judgement (Hebrews 9:27). We’ve just finished studying Revelation at church. Revelation 20 puts life into perspective in a terrifying account of God’s judgement (from verse 11):
“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
Ashley Madison, life is short. But eternity is very, very long.
