I’ve never met Richard Dawkins but I would very much like to thank him for throwing his influence and money behind the ‘atheist bus’ ad campaign, which is due to run in January. It should, I hope, play an important part in this country’s Christian revival.
The reason lies in some basic principles of marketing.
The biggest threat to a product is very often not competition but the lack of it, with resultant consumer apathy leading to market stagnation or decline.
Put simply, when one has a long-established, well-known, well-loved even, but somewhat generic product, i.e. when the product is the market, it can be very difficult to maintain a high degree of positive interest and engagement among its users.
But if and when competition arrives (and it usually does), it forces a re-evaluation of attitudes and creates an opportunity for the product to re-connect with a market suddenly forced to a point of choice. Suddenly “consumers” are faced with the need to make a conscious decision about whether and what to buy. In such circumstances, growth in the overall market is not an uncommon occurrence. The resurgence of board games in general, and Monopoly in particular, after the market entry of Trivial Pursuit is such an example.
For too long, the British public has been able to dodge the ‘God choice’ – is there or isn’t there? – by scribbling C of E on their hospital admission form. But now atheists are challenging us to make that choice one way or another. And they are doing so at a most opportune time.
This country has never been more prosperous or more satiated with material possessions, yet research shows that its inhabitants are no happier for it and, in some ways, are significantly unhappier.
The ‘Big Questions’ – ‘Who am I?’; ‘Why am I here?’; ‘Where am I going?’ – become ever more insistent as they are demonstrably not answered by financial security and material possessions (and the credit crunch and global recession now threaten even those).
Other research has shown that the majority of Christians would be happy to talk about their faith with other people and to share their Christ-informed perspective on the Big Questions – but only ‘if it comes up’. Natural British reserve coupled with the traditional view that religious faith is a taboo topic at the dinner party table, have conspired to encourage Christians to keep their heads down and their faith private.
What is needed, what advertising can provide, and what the atheist campaign opens the door toward, is a very public debate on the existence and nature of God. Faith in God (or, indeed, its opposite) cannot be sold from a billboard, but advertising can create a context in which ‘it comes up’ more often, and in which one-to-one conversations – the virus of faith – can flourish.
Christians need to be able to respond appropriately. That may mean developing their own on-going ad campaign, comprising engaging, thought-provoking, biblically-sound advertising concepts rooted in human experience. But it will also mean engaging respectfully, constructively and appropriately to the God-conversations when they come up.
If they can do that, they may end up having a lot to thank atheist buses for.
Mike Elms is a Fellow of The Marketing Society and a management consultant specialising in the advertising and marketing sector. He was formerly Chief Executive of ad agencies Ogilvy & Mather and Tempus/CIA.
