ADVERTISING

Written By:  Andrew Eide

I wish to relate an incident from when I worked in the Marketing Department of The Quiet Hour Christian ministry in Redlands, California.

I was tasked to come up with an advertisement for our Ministry for one of the magazines produced by the denomination. I got together with my Graphic Artist and I came up with two concepts.

The concepts were designed to be different than what every other ministry provides as advertisements for their ministry. I said if our advertisements look the same as everyone else’s we do not appear different or special. We just blend in and go unnoticed. I also said if we run a half-page ad then we are the only ad on that page but when we run a one-third or one-quarter page ad there are other ads from other ministries and we got lost in the shuffle.

I asked my Graphic Artist to come up with two concepts. First was to design people in the shape of numbers and the second was to design people in the shape of sheep. In the first ad the wording would be: WHILE OTHER CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES TREAT YOU AS A NUMBER THE QUIET YOUR TREATS YOU AS A PERSON.  In the second it was: WHILE OTHER CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES TREAT YOU LIKE YOU ARE ONE OF THE MANY SHEEP IN THE FLOCK THE QUIET YOUR MINISTRY TREATS YOU AS A PERSON.

Our Management personnel told me our advertisement concepts were stupid and to do what everyone else does. I protested and was told to do as they say so we did. Do you want to know what happened when we produced a one-quarter page ad that looked like the ads of all the other ministries that posted ads?

When the magazine came in I went page by page looking for our ad and I did not find it. I went through the magazine again and again and again and still was unable to find our ad even though I knew what it looked liked. Finally I had to go on each page of the magazine and X out every ad and finally about three-fourths of the way through the magazine our ad was the only one not X out.

We got lost in the shuffle because old stuck in a rut Management people refused to believe me that being special and unique and to ensure you don’t look like every else would work.