Christmas with CAN - O please no!

O yes I am afraid so - that self-appointed group called Churches Advertising Network have once again tried to introduce Christmas to the masses through a poster campaign.

After several years of slightly cringing misjudgements such as a series of cliched left-wing adaptations of Jesus, they have produce one this year which can only be described as sickening.

On the day when  a Government commissioned report suggests that rather than focus on Drugs education, schools and youth work bodies should be funded to work with educating young people about drink rather than drugs - ie drink is much the more serious problem - CAN launch this particularly obtuse poster - and they claim to be the media savvy ones who know how to communicate with young people!

My only hope is that this might be the last - that some representative body of Church leaders might prevail on them to desist in future years - or at least to stop them using the self appointed title of "The Churches" - which Churches - how are you accountable etc.

What makes it even worse is that they are apparently planning to repeat the series of radio adverts which they have prepared in previous years to place on radio programmes featuring dance music. Last years was utterly awful and confirmed many prejudices about just how out of touch the Church is, and was a severe embarrassment to those Christians engaged professionally in dance music.

So please CAN stop - leave our major festivals alone.

Comments

[barky]

that is pretty terrible. urgghhh.

[Karin]

What is it exactly, the dregs in a beer glass or something worse? If so are they trying to attract drunks to church for Christmas and are vicars and their congregations prepared for the potential sudden influx? Will sermons this Christmastide be about the good work done by Alcoholics Anonymous as well as 'inviting Jesus into your life' and will the details of the nearest AA group be given out with the hymn books and notices?

[Carl]

Absolutely Tom - we have put up with this nonsense for long enough - its time to can CAN !

[Dr Moose]

It's strange really... I rather like (at least some) of the CAN stuff. Even the "face of Jesus" in the beer froth - although it took a second look.

Ho hum.

[Rosie]

I understand that it has not yet been released to the wider public - but it will be another spectacular "own goal" or rather open goal for those who want to have a go - guess my response to Dr Moose would be that it is not a question of whether we in the Church "like it or not" - but does it communicate to those outside the Church - and the answer must be a resounding no - I am a 22 year old media specialist working for a real world PR company and clinging on in there at my local Church!

[Intrigued]

Remind me who Jesus spent time with? Sinners. Prostitutes. Drunks. Lepers. The dregs of society.

I'm just surprised that CAN bought such a gospel-relevant and scripturally sound campaign.

[Tom Allen]

Would Jesus also perhaps in our own day have some concern for the man waiting at home for his acoholic spouse to (maybe) return home safely from the office party, or for the woman wondering whether her pre-Christmas present is to be another battering,or for anxious family longing for this years Christmas present to be a much needed liver transplant - I guess the "irony" of the ad will be slightly lost on them.

[Carl]

Did you listen to the radio ads on the website you linked? They sounded rather good I thought.

[Tom]

Yes Carl of course I have heard the adverts for the past few years - my question to you is have you heard them in the context of the radio progammes in which they are broadcast - then they sound odd or out of place. Last year's ones sounded like your DAB had mistakenly cut to Radio 2. So the question is not whether we like them (they are pleasent enough) but whether they are actually communicating with the claimed audience - I am highly sceptical of that.

[Mark]

“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is proved right by her actions." – Matthew 11

[Tom]

Mark - not sure what you are trying to say from your quote - the rest of us are discussing the advert I think - does it work? - for which the previous verse to your quotation might seem more appropriate critique of how the Church tries ( and fails?) to communicate:

" We played the flute for you, and you did not dance, we waildd and you did not mourn"

[Lewin]

Find Jesus at the bottom of an empty glass?
Have a pint with Santa this Christmas?

Please please what about the poor sods who are struggling with alcoholism - and that includes many christians and clergy
What will CAN choose next year for their ironic ad - perhaps a cancer patient.
I learnt in six form media studies that if an ad needing explaining it had failed!!

[John Carter]

Thank you guys, Tom especially, for providing Ruth Gledhill and others with someone to create controversy and put the ad on the front page of the nationals. We have had a mammoth and largely positive response from across the world. Rosie, I urge you to check out www.myspace.com/isthisjesus before jumping to your conclusion. Dr Moose and Intrigued - thanks for your comments. Lewin and Karin - condeming this ad because it has a beer glass on it is like condeming an ASH campaign against smoking because it has a burning cigarette on it - try to see beyond your literalist interpretation. Tom, the radio ads have won three Andrew Cross awards in the past five years, the Che campaign is on show in the V and A museum etc etc. And the final word of support from the last place we expected it:

"Just a short note of appreciation for your ad campaign “Is this Jesus?”. It was the talk of Los Angeles morning radio on Bill Handel’s program this morning at KFI AM 640.

We are Bible publishers. Davidson Press publishes the International Standard Version Bible. You can find out more about it at http://isv.org and http://davidsonpress.com.

We here at Davidson Press whole-heartedly support your campaign and wish you the best of success in the UK and elsewhere, should you decide to expand the concept to the USA or Europe."

[Tom Allen]

Hi John
Didn't really intend to add to what I said on the post which says it all in terms of my reaction to an ad.

So you have won awards from the Christian advertising industry - I had to look up the Andrew Cross awards. I'd be impressed when you get awards from Motorola Dance Awards or Kerrang or Mixmag or something in the real world you are trying to communicate with or perhaps from your secular media peers.

As for you response to Rosie I sure that she will soon realise that despite the mammoth response from across the world and all that coverage in the national press you have only got 430 friends on a myspace site (a good proportion are either loggers or critics or Daily Telegraph readers, or Christians anyway) which presumably was the key point of the advert.

So being generous in allocating 33% of the friends to the non-Christian category thats about a hundred something - when the market leaders in young adult culture have thousands. You might think it a success - I don't think she will.

With regard to its style I wonder whether irony really works ( which I guess is what you mean when you accuse other commenters of being literalist) - yes it is quite clever when you sit and analyse it - but do your really do irony when you flick through a paper or pass the add in the street. I would hesitate to suggest that most people will think a brewery advert and pass by.

Are you seriously suggesting that an endorsement from American freak radio such as KFI AM 640 is a good thing?

So what if a group like your admirers at the Davidson Press think it a good thing - I didn't think it was aimed at 60 something biblical scholars in the States who want to plug their bible?

What evidence is there that it is reaching the young adults that you claimed you wanted to reach.If you had a paying client would you be able to demonstrate value for money?

Despite thinking that the EMPTY beer glass advert is in the poorest taste possible at Christmastime that is not really the point - I might be won round to your claims of success if there was evidence that it works with the people you claim it is aimed at - rather than the media and Christians.
Tom