Teresa May teams up with Richard Dawkins

A new lease of life for the agnostibus. After all, it worked so well last time, all those buses driving round London telling people there's 'probably no God' and what happens? Yup, the church in London grows faster than anywhere else in the country. However, as one of the main drivers of this is immigration, here's an obvious common cause for the Home Office and the Humanists.

This years ChurchAds Christmas campaign

Good, solid, incarnational theology from ChurchAds.

Or if you're more into the moving image, there's a great stock of stuff at the Nativity Factor. It looks like they are re-running the competition for 2012, which is great news. What would be even more intesteresting would be a Cross Factor easter version.

How To Sell Stuff to Christians

Fascinating piece on British Religion in Numbers a few days back, on how consumerist Christians manage to square the circle with themselves (ourselves, lets be honest here). This week's turned into a bit of a marketing theme....

More than 400 people living in the UK were shown an advert for the same watch that was either depicted as being an item of desire and public recognition, or as an item of functional value.



Half of the sample identified themselves as Christians believing that materialism was wrong. Although non-religious consumers did not prefer one advert over the other, religious consumers were 25% more likely to purchase the watch if they saw the advert that did not portray it as a materialistic item.


‘We found that expensive luxury watches that were advertised as being showy or an item of envy were frowned upon by religious consumers. However, when the same item was advertised as being high quality and enduring, rather than having materialistic value, the religious consumers were significantly more willing to purchase the product.’


The authors claim that the results of the study ‘help to explain how many Christians acquire and store materialistic items for themselves and their family, despite many Biblical teachings that discourage hoarding wealth.’ They suggest the findings could be used by marketers, advertisers and sales forces to drive sales up.


‘It’s important to know what type of person you’re dealing with,’ said Dr Shankar. ‘If you are talking to someone who is clearly not averse to being materialistic, then it doesn’t really matter what you say. But, if you’re targeting a high-end, expensive, flashy product to people who are put off by materialism, then you need to change your approach.’
In other words, Mammon is more subtle than we thought, and we're more materialistic than we like to think we are. At the end of the day, we still buy far more stuff than we need, and consume far more resources than our fair share as planetary citizens.

I still maintain that Christian marketing is a contradiction in terms, but con myself that our families minor victory over marketing (all of us, kids included, now automatically mute the ads on TV) represents VM day, rather than a minor skirmish. I'm still far too easily taken in by BOGOF and big discounts.

Internet Monk is also worth a read, notably on the 'Jesus junk' market, and Orthocubans response. Excuse me whilst I pin a WWJD badge to my JC/DC t-shirt. 

Crikey

I've got so used to stuff that's offensive to Christians, or just plain offensive, getting past the censors that it's quite a shock to find the Advertising Standars Authority actually banning an advert that uses a winking 'Jesus' to plug a 'miraculous' deal.

Better late than never, the judgement seems to have just been issued, even though the advert came out in April, and was aimed at the Easter season, but the company which produced it withdrew it fairly quickly after complaints.

Just makes me wonder if sometimes Christians are guilty of misusing Jesus in marketing too. I imagine Jesus is even more bothered about being associated with stuff like this than with a mobile phone company.

Nazareth Ultrasound

In a valiant attempt to trump World Cup fever with the Christmas rush, the Churches Advertising Network have unveiled their contribution to Christmas 2010. I was impressed with their bus stop nativity scene last year, and this is just as provocative and eye-catching.

More thoughts on this at Phil's Treehouse, Deiknuo, and Bishop Nick (responding to some of the scoffers), and I particularly like his conclusion:

This poster is designed to arrest the attention of the usually disinterested. It is aimed at awakening the imagination, teasing the curiosity and provoking fresh consideration of the heart of Christianity – precisely what Jesus did with parables, images and stories. No, it doesn’t cover all the bases and deal comprehensively with every theological nuance; but it gives a huge kick start to thinking about what Christmas is all about.

Elsewhere the Daily Fail , like SPUC, tries to turn this into a story about abortion. There's a different perspective from The Lay Scientist.

Just to re-read that tagline: Christmas starts with Christ. Not a debate about abortion. Wouldn't it be sad if an ultrasound image, the first picture of a new life, just became a symbol of a debate about death?

Though at least I now know what happened after my wife swallowed her wedding ring.

Adultery Ads Axed

That was quick. Following a campaign launched a few days ago against the public advertising of 'marital affair', an agency which set people up for adulterous liasons, this message has just been posted on the Facebook campaign site:

STATEMENT FROM MARITALAFFAIR.CO.UK: “We have reviewed our advertising strategy and have instructed our agency to remove billboard ads from our current campaign in light of recent developments. We maintain that people have the right to chose their own lifestyle and that this site provides a safe and secure outlet for those who are considering this.”

This is awaiting confirmation (update: now confirmed), and we also need to make sure the ads actually come down. However I'm glad the company have had the decency to do what the Advertising Standards Agency wouldn't do. Their statement cries out for critique though: "People do have the right to choose their own lifestyle" but within what limits? Or none at all? What if my lifestyle included, say, vandalising advertising hoardings?

Well done to the campaigners, this is good news.

Advertising Adultery: Does the ASA care about your marriage?

It doesn't look like it. Dave Walker reports on an appalling company which promotes, and makes money out of, adultery. A complaint against one of their billboard adverts drew this response from the Advertising Standards Authority:

Complaints about offence often require difficult judgements but we don’t intervene where advertising is simply criticised for being in poor taste. Apart from freedom of speech considerations, even well-intentioned and thoughtful people will have different and sometimes contradictory opinions about what constitutes ‘bad taste’ or should be prohibited. We can only act if the ad, in our judgement, offends against widely accepted moral, social or cultural standards.

My emphasis. Are we really a nation which no longer finds adultery morally offensive? Is it now ok to make promises to one person, then have sex with someone else, without breaking any moral standard? Without wanting to turn into disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, I find this stomach churning, as will many people who've dealt with the fall-out of adultery and it's catastrophic effects on families, children and the adults involved. That some sick minded individuals want to turn a profit on this is bad enough, but then we already have plenty of people who profiteer from sin and no doubt we always will. But I really don't understand what the ASA are doing here.

Having said that, perhaps there was a straw in the wind last week. I've been following Kirsty Youngs series on the family on the Beeb: last week looked at the period from the late 60's to early 80's, and focused on sex. There was a cool, detached narrative on pornography, adultery, sexual promiscuity etc., without any noticeable moral judgment on any of it.

There's a Facebook group supporting the campaign against the adverts, which, if it attracts enough support, will demonstrate that ads like this do cause 'widespread offense'. Though of course, without the internet, most of us wouldn't have heard of it at all. There's a whole other discussion to be had on whether there's such a thing as 'local' anymore....

see also Maggi Dawn. Sadly the Times has a big cold slab of cynicism in the same vein as the advertisers, but hope is restored if you sort the comments by 'most recommended'.

How to Use Your Church Noticeboard

superb idea, done for a Baptist church in the US, via Church Marketing Sucks.

I'm not sure if this is one of those which only works if you stand in one place. Our church is by a main road, so we'd maybe need a sign with a pair of eyes that would 'follow' cars being driven at roughly 20 miles an hour. Or we could go really hi-tech, and get a number-plate reader, and have a sign which announced 'driver of AD55PTL, God wants you to cycle!' or something.

Bit like the talking ads in Minority Report, but without Tom Cruise, and in Yeovil.

We'd have to be careful not to get done by Lambeth Council for talking about God in something higher than a whisper.

What is it with Buses and Religion?

The Churches Advertising Network is hoping to get 2,000 of these

onto bus shelters in time for Christmas. More about the campaign here. Churches are being encouraged to buy a bus stop for £100, and CAN will do the rest. It'll be interesting to see if there's a parody of the ads by the agnostibus crew, in the slightly embarassing way Christians picked up on last years bus ads. They do have a book to promote, after all.

This cracking bit of art was around last year, but the most excellent 30-second nativity overshadowed it a bit, so I'm glad it's being recycled. It'll also fit perfectly with one of the carol services I'm involved with, at Yeovil College, on a theme of Poverty and Christmas.

Church Signs

Good post at Swiss Toni about church signs, and the rights and wrongs of proclaiming your beliefs as if they were hard fact. Ht the Britblog roundup, hosted by Amused Cynicism. Above is one of my favourites, but there are some truly dreadful ones here. Like this:

this is slightly better, though they probably cribbed the joke from Bruce Almighty


If all this makes you despair a Christendom's ability to come up with anything funny, then fear not. The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley have put up an advert for a new druid.

We are a group of 12 Beaker communities scattered across the hamlets to the east of Spalding.
Well, when we say communities, strictly speaking four of these communities have only one member each and there's only twenty-three of us in total. But we are dedicated to keeping true to our roots. Which is why we insist on worshipping only each within our our own Moot Houses, coming together only for the annual Falling Out ceremony where we remember why we don't get together any more often.

There's more, much more, and I'm overjoyed to discover that Ruth Gledhill has spotted this as well. Much deserved recognition for 'Archdruid Eileen', whoever he may be.

New Alpha Advert

interesting approach. What do people think?

Update: other takes from Peter Ould, Nick Baines, whilst both The Maranatha, and My Life as a Wrestler wonder if having a celebrity say 'I did Alpha' will have any effect at all. Meanwhile, interesting post from Crispian Jago 'how Alpha turned me into an atheist'. Link from Phil Ritchie to a Guardian series by a journalist who's doing the course at the moment.

"The fools on the bus go round and round..."

The Trinitarian Bible society are putting 100 bus ads on saying "The fool hath said in his heart 'there is no God'."

I have a question:

WHY ARE YOU USING THE AUTHORISED VERSION?

Nothing like doing the atheists work for them: what will this ad communicate?
- that Christians hold non-believers in contempt
- that we speak funny.

Please lets have more snow to keep these off the roads, say for a week from Feb 9th (and see Peter Kirk for links to other people's efforts on the DIY agnostibus. This one is particularly good).

Simon Barrow talks sense: "Many people will feel this has little to do with anything Christianly or humanly edifying. One has to wonder whether the purveyors of pro- and anti-God slogans really think they will persuade people? It feels more like a war of position between groups who cannot resist 'having a go back'."

Sadly predictable no.2: Mark and Phil Brewer have failed to get their paperwork in to the courts, resulting in a delay in the employee tribunals for former SPCK workers (ht Phil Groom). Hearings will now take place in May, to 'decide who the employer was at the time' (!!) This follows on from them

- failing to get their accounts in to the Charities Commission on time

- failing to get their paperwork in to Companies House

- failing to provide proper paperwork for a bankruptcy suit filed by themselves in the US

is there a pattern here?


Sadly predictable no.3:
we can't cope with the snow: