Best advertising for the Church – by you

As someone who works in the marketing industry, I often get asked whether advertising and religion are not morally at odds with each other.

I usually respond by pointing out that the most powerful form of advertising has always been word of mouth. And this was something in which the disciples of Christ excelled.

But I can understand the moral indignation of those who see advertising as persuading, cajoling and tempting consumers into buying things that perhaps they would not have wanted; or promoting materialism by creating must-have brands and peer pressure among the younger generation. Not to mention keeping up with the Joneses.

Indeed, more often than not advertising does push the moral envelope to breaking point, but as with most things, it is a compromise. Research and case histories have quite clearly shown that without advertising, marketing would be left without any way of communicating with the masses. This would result in far fewer products being bought. And the end result would not only be a dramatic increase in the prices of basics such as soap and toothpaste, but more importantly, result in billions—yes, billions—of jobs being lost.

Rightly or wrongly, marketing is the engine that drives the consumer products industry and without it, global poverty would be cataclysmic.

Interestingly, there is also a place for marketing in religion. For example, while Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of The Christ created much conjecture and controversy all over the world, it had an extremely positive impact on the Catholic Church, and gave impetus to those who have been banging on about it being high time religions started marketing themselves in their quest for new members and funding.

According to the Financial Times, Gibson’s movie was directly responsible for a surge of money into a faith-based mutual fund.

The Ave Maria Catholic Values Fund pulled in R104 million from new investors just after the movie was released, lifting its assets to R1,1 billion. (The fund was named by founding investor George Monaghan, who started the Domino’s Pizza chain.)

What is quite remarkable about the marketing effect of Gibson’s movie is that the Ave Maria fund shuns companies that offer partner benefits to unmarried couples, which eliminates about 40% of those on the Standard & Poor global corporate ratings index index. It didn’t seem to hurt though, because the Ave Maria Fund rose by 39% in three years.

The past decade has seen the Catholic Church taking an enormous beating in the world’s press over sexual abuse by priests. It was very slow in reacting to mounting criticism and made the huge mistake of trying to handle things internally and privately, and was consequently accused of mass cover-ups.

Along came Mel Gibson and his missionary marketing machine, and in a few short months this raised the Catholic Church and Christianity in general from derision to something the whole world wanted to know more about. And still does.

Gibson made no bones about the fact that the reason for making this movie was essentially as a result of his faith, not money. But he has made a bundle of money.

At the same time, however, his movie, and all the positive and negative publicity it generated, turned out to be one of the biggest religious marketing coups of all time.

Of course, there was always a huge risk. Predictably, a large section of the global Jewish community was upset by the movie, claiming it was adding fuel to the fire of anti-Semitism.

Gibson, the Vatican and others said that this was only in the eye of certain beholders, and not part of the plot at all.

As a result of this peripheral controversy, a lot of Arab nations started taking interest in the movie, which increased box office takings even more and opened up what Christianity is all about to the Muslim world.

As a marketing case history, Gibson’s movie has been an absolute classic.

Frankly, I had hoped that there would be more of the same, not only from the Catholic Church, but also from other religions. There have been a few, but none of the magnitude of Gibson’s epic.

Yet, in spite of the enormous marketing clout of these box office movie hits, the most powerful form of religious advertising remains word of mouth.

It is what we as Catholics, for example, say to our friends and family members who have lost touch with God. It is the way we behave, the examples we set, and most of all the demonstrable peace and serenity we derive from our religion. All of that is marketing.

And best of all, it is something everyone can do.