The Roman Church has been running an advertising campaign aimed, I presume, at persuading lapsed Romans to return to the Church. Ecclesiastical advertising campaigns have always fascinated me, and I would be interested to know the name of the agency that conceived this one.
Advertising campaigns, after all, are best left in the hands of professionals. Do-it-yourself advertisements all too often bear the unmistakable imprints of the “loving hands of home.”
This can occasionally be quite charming: radio listeners in the Baltimore area, for example, are serenaded each spring by a local installer of awnings and blinds who warbles the virtues of his wares in a slightly off-key tenor.
Dr. Samuel Johnson, the 18th Century sage and lexicographer, would probably sniffily liken his performance to a dog walking on its hind legs: “It is not that it is done well, but that it is done at all.”
This might not be entirely fair, but it does illustrate the pitfalls confronting prospective ecclesiastical advertisers. It is probably going a tad too far to contend that Church advertising should in variably reflect the word “gravitas.” Nevertheless, hokeyness should be avoided at all costs.
In this regard, it is vital that care be taken in choosing not only the right advertising agency, but also the right advertising executive. The dangers involved in making the wrong choice are illustrated by what might well be an apocryphal yarn about the Japanese company Mitsubishi when it was trying to break into the North American market in the early 1950s.
According to legend, they hired an advertising agency with a chief copywriter who, a few years previously, had been a prisoner of war on the Bataan Death March. The slogan the copy writer proposed was: “From those wonderful people who brought you Pearl Harbor …”
On this basis, it would probably be wise for churches to avoid advertising agencies whose copywriters are atheists.
Being too darned clever can also get prospective advertisers into trouble. For instance, some years ago a major British conglomerate sought to break into the dog food market. It engaged a prestigious agency because its senior vice president specialized in promoting gourmet foods. The product was launched at a press luncheon at a highly regarded London restaurant. The tables sparkled with crystal and silver. Fine porcelain gleamed amid carefully starched napkins on shimmering white tablecloths.
As the executives of the dog food division looked on, the press corps were served a starting course of pâté de fois gras flown in from Strasbourg, France, followed by perfectly cooked Tournedos Rossini . (To my my mind, it is a tad vulgar to serve to two courses each incorporating a portion of fois gras, but in advertising nothing exceeds like excess).
Eagerly the dog food executives looked forward to their own mouthwatering platters. Solemnly, waiters processed in bearing huge silver salvers, then, uncovering them with a flourish, they presented each executive with a silver spoon, a Tiffany can opener and a tin of the company’s dog food. “Eat,” hissed specialist in gourmet food advertising.
The advertising campaign was a roaring success, unpleasant though it was for the dog food executives. This, however, is more that can be said for the campaign devised for the manufacturers of the cigarette “More” when they tried to launch their product in Germany back in the 1970s.
“More” translates into German as “mehr” but the word “mehr” doesn’t really work in the German language as the name of a cigarette. Thus it was decided to rename the brand “M” in Germany and to market it under the slogan “M is more”—in German, “M ist mehr.”
Unfortunately, typography was the campaign’s downfall. The slogan appeared on the posters with a giant “M” hard up against a very much smaller “ist.” Visually, it was quite striking .
The only problem was that it spelled the word “mist” which in German means “horse manure.” The situation was not much helped by the fact that the posters were pasted on the hoardings side by side, four and five in a row, trumpeting the message “More horse manure … More horse manure … More horse manure …”
From this perspective, I am tempted to wonder if the Romans shouldn’t have been a tad more careful with their current advertising program. It might be seen as more than a little presumptuous to imply Rome is “the one true Church” (a claim also made by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists). But what is one to make of the claim that Rome “compiled” the Bible?
Moses and King David and the prophets might have something to say on that subject—so too might Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Jude and Peter. Plain spoken Martin Luther would, doubtless, declare the Roman claims marked the “mist.” TTFN.
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