Holy Marketing

Monday, August 14, 2006 at 01:14pm by Angela Gilltrap in Marketing

I was at church on Sunday (the pious individual I am) and found that even there we are not immune to marketing. Just so you can picture the unusual circumstances I often find myself, I am a Caucasian/Italian/French Australian and also a proud member of a prominent Baptist church in Harlem. I say this only because I think it would take an outsider to notice what most people dismiss.

During the summer months they often hand out fans for the congregation, to ease the stifling heat. These �fans� are a piece of round cardboard mounted onto a wooden paddle, similar to the ones you find after you�ve eaten the good bits off your ice cream. It is on more than one occasion that I have noticed various advertising printed on the cardboard, mostly for funeral services. This week however, new fans were produced advertising the musical �The Colour Purple� proudly brought to you by Oprah Winfrey. What better way to reach your target audience! Low cost, high rotation and a captive audience. After all when the sermon is dragging on a little (not that ours does of course), you can�t help but read and re-read the paddle, over and over again. You see, a healthy sermon can go on for up to four hours that�s a lot of reading time. Then of course, when it�s all said and done one congregation says goodbye and another fills up. The whole process is repeated again, a great example of target marketing, creative thinking and low cost promotion.

Spread some petals These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.