Campaign overview

Voice of the campaign

The church has no role in public culture unless it is present in the media. To be without a media presence is to be voiceless and powerless in a post-modern culture.  —Leonard Sweet

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is seeing a rebirth of energy and ethusiaism directed at efforts around evangelism. There are many ways individual congregations can do evangelism — outreach programs, canvassing their neighborhood, inviting friends and neighbors to attend a service.  Another option for local churches and presbyteries is to use the Here and Now awareness campaign.

This campaign, complete with TV, radio and print messages, allows you to get your message into the main stream media — a critical component to evangelism in this Web 2.0 world.  It allows people to receive your message at a place where they are in the normal routine of their day.  The radio spot plays as they’re driving home from work, they see the TV message while enjoying their morning coffee, and come across the print message while checking out the community board at the local grocery.

Why use media to promote your church?

Mass media, whether print, radio or TV, are the most economical way to reach thousands — or even millions — of people who may be looking to join a church. Mass media reach people as part of their everyday life and have the ability to create a broad awareness of your church that “word of mouth” simply cannot.

A campaign tested in research

To support the validity of using a communications campaign some test market research was conducted in the Colorado Springs area at the end of 2003 and early in 2004. A baseline of awareness of and attitudes toward the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) were established, and a schedule of TV advertising was then aired. Subsequent audience research measured shifts in awareness and attitudes.

Here are some of the key findings:

• Overall the advertising efforts were very successful in gaining awareness. Not only did people notice the ads, but they also recalled the key points of the messages, which left a positive impression with the target audience.
• Among non-affiliated respondents, familiarity of the PC(USA) and intent to visit a PC(USA) church were significantly higher among those aware of the ads than among those who were not. Also, intent to visit a PC(USA) church increased from 0 percent to 12 percent, a statistically significant increase.
• Image perceptions for those already affiliated with the church remained stable.

The Here and Now materials are not under copyright restrictions. This allows your presbytery or congregation to modify the materials to suit your local marketplace.

In addition we encourage you to link from your Web site to the Here and Now site in order to increase the distribution and awareness of the campaign and its materials.