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

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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?

• Envy – a powerful motivator
• The strange omission from Australia Day advertising
• Lilydale – ‘it’ll have you saying grace again’
• Loyalty in marriage strikes a cord

I was also interested to see recently that Alpha is using Bear Grylls to advertise its courses on Sydney Buses.

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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:

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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.

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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?

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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.

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She was searching online.

I suggested she check out Roses Only.

Her response: “I thought they only sold roses”.

They don’t, but with a name like Roses Only, you’d be forgiven for thinking this.

A good reminder to think before you name, to ensure that your name doesn’t confuse or alienate future customers – or, in the case of Christian ministries, the people we are promoting our ministries to.

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I looked up, and saw an interesting billboard advertisement. YouTube was advertising that it will be streaming the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches live. This was the first I’d heard of this initiative, although I’ve since discovered it’s been reported extensively online.

When I got back to the office, I looked up the website that was promoted on the billboard. The top of the page was fine, and it looks like this:

However, when I scrolled down the page, comments had been enabled and four of the seven profile pictures were explicit – soft-core pornography.

It’s outrageous – a website that is being heavily promoted in public areas (and on the YouTube website) and is accessible to all (and of interest to many, especially younger boys) – is displaying soft-core pornography.

YouTube and the IPL – turn the comments off, or get a competent moderator in to ensure that these comments (and their profile pics) never see the light of day. This is poor form to allow such a high profile site to be managed so poorly.

I’m also very sick of pornographers infiltrating every aspect of our lives. Come Lord Jesus.

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It wasn’t even my idea – it’s the idea of my colleague Hayley (you can find her on Twitter, or check out her website).

This was going to be the plan:

Step 1. Design and print a poster encouraging people to read the Bible. We completed step 1, and developed this poster (click on the image to enlarge):

Step 2. The next step was to put the poster in the a-frame outside the church, next to a table with free copies of ‘The Essential Jesus‘ – the gospel of Luke.

Unfortunately, on returning from the printer after completing step 1, I discovered a ranger from the local council inspecting our a-frame. I was told it was illegal to display this outside the church in our local area (this was news to me, and apparently news to every other business on the street that was also receiving the ‘take-down’ instruction).

This has put a bit of a roadblock in this plan to encourage people in our community to read the Bible!

How are you seeking to achieve this goal in your community?

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Churches have mission statements too.

• College Park Church has the mission: “Igniting a passion to follow Jesus”.
• Church by the Bridge has the mission: “Living for Jesus. Loving like Jesus”.
• Redeemer Presbyterian has the mission: “Seeking to renew the City Socially, Spiritually and Culturally”.
• Covenant Life Church has the mission: “to build a community of gospel-centered people.”
• Emmanuel Church has the three-fold mission: “to glorify God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit by listening and responding to God’s word obediently;
  loving one another practically; and proclaiming Christ boldly”.
• St Andrew’s Cathedral has a slightly longer mission: “To glorify God by proclaiming our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ in prayerful dependence on the Holy Spirit, so that everyone will hear his call to repent, trust and serve Christ in love, and be established in the fellowship of his disciples while we await his return”.

These are mission statements set big expectations.

What’s the mission statement for your church?

The challenge for us (and for Avis) when we set and then promote these mission statements is to actually live up to them.

Too often, corporate mission statements are dreamt up in board-room meeting of the marketing executive, who forgot to tell the staff that they should actually try harder. (Avis – this hasn’t been my experience with you – you just have a mission that’s easy to use as an example!)

My point is, too often the behaviour doesn’t come close to matching the mission – there is a disconnect between the bold mission of the company, and the people who have face-to-face contact with the customers (i.e. the people who actually need to implement the mission).

And as a result we cause harm to our brand, or more importantly in our case, tarnish the reputation of our God.

We need God’s help to live out these missions. We really need God’s help. But, by God’s grace and with his power at work within us, we can live up to these bold missions.

And when we miraculously do, all the glory goes to God.

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