Buying and Selling Christianity

An interesting point made in this segment of The Gruen Transfer is about the internal outcomes of religious advertising, i.e. the effect on those who would already self-identify as religious adherents. I'm not sure why, but I have usually thought of religious advertising as being aimed at conversion -- the aim being an increase in the quantity of consumers rather than the quality of consumption. 

But both Jane Caro and Jeremy Nicholas make this point about the advertising campaign for Christianity shown in the segment: it targets and is most effective on an already captive audience of religious believers.

Nicholas talks about the function of the campaign as "shor[ing] up [the] user base."  (2011) Caro says, "[they're] preaching to the converted. People always say that like it's a bad thing to do, it's not... it's a really sensible thing to do…you can not take your core users for granted…that's when you start losing your followers to other religions or no religion" (2011) 

What is implied in these comments is that religious advertising, like all advertising, is not targeting extremes of the spectrum:  neither the ears of the firmly devout nor the firmly doubtful are sought after. The ears to hear belong to those who believe, but are for whatever reason, inconsistent or non-practicing consumers. 

The ad is reported to have been effective in as much as Christian churches reported an increase in attendees following the campaign. This increase in 'sales' may be related to the fact that the ad was broad enough to include all shades of the Christian brand. 

As Einstein points out in her analysis of a Christian advertising campaign that was attempting to sell a particular 'sub-brand' of Christianity (the United Methodist Church): "the strategy of bringing people to a category is appropriate if you are the leader in the category." (2011, 336) The ad on Gruen was not created by a leader in the category, but out of a partnership of all the sub-brands in the category. In was both multi-denominational and non-denominational; not selling church, selling Jesus.

The idea of selling Jesus instead of selling Christianity or church-going, or a particular denomination of Christianity may fit into Marcel Cobussen's idea of para-spirituality. Cobussen describes para-spirituality as the "groping, hesitating, searching, not knowing…the insight that the spiritual is unable to contain itself within itself and therefore needs the para-spiritual." (In Ward 2011, 81) 

Situating Jesus within the context of  a "groping, hesitating, searching, not-knowing" spirituality is a way of speaking to an audience who of believers hesitant or reluctant to act on their belief. Selling a Jesus-y para-spirituality may work as a bridge between belief and the first step toward a purchase of practicing Christian spirituality.

References

Anderson, W., J. Caro, R. Howcroft, J. Nicholas and T. Sampson.  2011. "How do you sell religion?"  On The Gruen Transfer. ABC TV (broadcast  September 8, 2010). Television program.

Einstein, M. 2011. The Evolution of Religious Branding. Social Compass 58 (3): 331- 338. Accessed on April 7, 2013: http://scp.sagepub.com/content/58/3/331

Ward, P. 2011.Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion, and Celebrity Culture. London: SCM Press.