Just Because We Can, Should We?

The title says it all. In fact, weigh in at the bottom of this post and see what everyone else is saying. If you feel as though you could be persuaded though, keep reading.

Far too often we advertisers move forward with campaigns without ever asking this question. Maybe it’s because we feel it isn’t our job to ask. Maybe we are too far down the decision-making chain to really matter. But whatever the case, we should never neglect to ask the question of just because we can, should we?

Social media: it would seem that every company, nonprofit, lobbying group, man, woman and dog have a Facebook now. It would not be unlikely for a client to walk into your office and expect you to include a Twitter account in their campaign. But if you were to be completely honest, some clients shouldn’t be on Twitter. They probably have no business being on Facebook either. In the end, their desire to be socially connected might win out over your better judgment that they are utterly not, and a new 140-character tweet is born.

To take this idea one step further, think of the product itself. Jay Suhr, SVP Chief Creative Office of T3, a creative firm out of Austin Texas, once advised his interns, “Sometimes the product just sucks,” and encourages them to push a client to develop their end of the deal before we waste a perfectly brilliant campaign on it. Even the best advertising that money can buy will not sell something destined for failure.

Beyond the client’s need to hold up their end of the bargain, there are some cases that beg this question in an ethical way. These are cases that I am the most interested in, specifically when marketing what Christians call “the Gospel.”

When Jesus was born, not a single email was sent. He didn’t trend on Twitter. Mary and Joseph didn’t create a new Facebook album. As he grew, his Klout score remained stagnant. LinkedIn never sent him a request. Steve Jobs was still two millennium in the making, so he didn’t even have a gen-one iPod to listen to. Those must have been some long, silent walks.

How then do we go about deciding how to take a message created by the first-century messiah impact a twenty-first-century culture?

Some could argue that Jesus’ message has no business on the cyber channels of the internet. It didn’t originate there and has been doing just find on its own. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

I might be able to understand that argument, if only I was fifty years older. The reality is that if you want my attention you have to compete for it. So many churches claim to want to “meet people where they are at.” What better way than to literally meet them where they’re at, constantly, with location-based applications on their smartphones? If YouTube is constantly streaming videos from every topic and user on the planet, then why not Christianity as well? I’m not trying to make a case for pluralism. I would even go as far to say that we shouldn’t strive to just fit in. But if these avenues are available to Christian advertisers, then it feels as though Jesus’ message is perhaps the best-suited social campaign for these outlets.

Maybe there really is a line in the sand that I tend to cross on this subject. Maybe I take it one step too far. I probably couldn’t justify Jesus action figures or church-brand soft drinks, but when it comes to using media to market the Gospel, I am definitely all in.