From Sampler to Sower

Last Sunday was a great day for football, unless you’re a part of Steeler Nation.  And I’m definitely not.

It was also, from most reports, a mediocre day for commercials, which was a disappointment, since the Super Bowl is supposed to be, well, the Super Bowl of advertising.

There were a few high points.  Talking to my boys, the consensus was the winners were Audi (Release the hounds!), Coca Cola with its border crossing ad, and whatever it was that Ozzie and Bieber were selling (it had something to do with G’s).  Of course, can you call a commercial a winner when, after seeing, you can’t remember what it was advertising. (“Was it a Sprint phone or something?” was the best my boys could come up with.)

And there were lots of losers.  Take Dorito’s.  When asked, they said they liked them (especially Grandpa’s ashes). But they didn’t mention any of them at any point in our discussion until asked about them afterward.  Plus there were plenty of advertisers we won’t be patronizing.  There’s nothing like the Super Bowl to remind me why I always use iPower for all my DNS registry needs.

But one advertising rivalry really caught my attention. After a year’s hiatus in which they skipped the Super Bowl and focused on the Refresh project, Pepsi was back going head to head with their prime competitor Coca Cola.

After the jump we’ll break it down, and hopefully, while we’re at it, learn a thing or two about ministry in the process.

Coke vs Pepsi 2011 edition

Coca Cola ran two ads at this year’s Super Bowl.  One was my favorite ad of the year, featuring a couple of border guards who decide to edit the line in the sand in the interest of a shared moment of happiness.  You probably saw it, but if not you can watch it here.  The second was an epic tale of good versus evil.  You might remember a few years back a Coca Cola meets Grand Theft Auto commercial.  Well this is more like Coca Cola meets World of Warcraft.  Enemies lay siege to a castle and bring a fire breathing dragon to conquer their enemies, but when the dragon drinks a coke… well… everything changes.  Again you probably saw it, but if not you can watch it here.  (For some reason, I can’t get embedding to work with these…)

Two incredibly well done commercials.

Contrast those with Pepsi’s offerings.  There won’t be videos linked, because quite honestly they aren’t what I consider appropriate for my website.  But maybe you saw them.  In one, a husband repeatedly repeatedly finds himself in trouble because he’s eating high calorie foods while his wife is attempting to diet.  Finally he sits down to a Pepsi Max, earning her appreciation, until his wandering eyes stray to flirt with an attractive jogger, while his angry wife watches.

In the second, a couple are out on a first date. The viewer is privy to their unspoken thoughts.  She wonders “Is he wealthy? Will he lose his hair? . . . Is he the one?” While all he can think is “I want to sleep with her.” High brow comedy, I know.

And then there’s the can-launching cooler.  OK, so maybe that wasn’t offensive, but it was rather predictable and pointless.

It’s easy to dismiss it as mere advertising, but after talking commercials with my kids, I started to wonder…

What values are being promoted?

When you really stop and think about it, there is a dramatic contrast between these two ad campaigns.  Having seen the ads, what values would you say Coca Cola represents?  And Pepsi?  Which would you prefer? Coca Cola, the brand that bridges borders and neutralizes violence, or Pepsi, the brand of lust.

“Oh,” you say, “that’s just one Super Bowl, five commercials, it’s not a brand identity.”

But stop and think about it.  What are the most memorable Coca Cola commercials of all time?  I’d like to teach the world to sing? Mean Joe Green? A family of Polar Bears?

And how about the most memorable Pepsi commercials of all time? A little harder I know, but what do you remember? Two boys ogling Cindy Crawford? Two truck drivers brawling in a diner? Bob Dole and his “little blue friend engrossed in a Britney Spears video?

Now granted, there are some notable exceptions.  Michael Jackson and the Pepsi Generation aired far enough before all the scandals that it had a good feeling about it.  And the Bob Dylan/Will-i-am “Forever Young” duet was almost inspirational.  But the what is the brand identity you remember?

Almost all Coca Cola ads have that feel good Utopian feel to them.  Remember a destitute Montgomery Burns finding friends when Coca Cola came to Springfield?  Or how about all of nature working together in the recent “Heist” ad?

And while Pepsi is all over the place, they seem to always find their way back to low road of “sex sells.”  Their advertising high point was when they quit making ads and focused on earning a reputation by funding good works.  But it wasn’t long until they were back to their old formula.

At Least for Coca Cola, It’s Not an Accident

Just before the Super Bowl, Coca Cola North America’s Chief Marketing Officer Bea Perez appeared on Bloomberg to talk about their advertising strategy for the big game.  During the interview, Ms Perez talked about how their advertising department understands their brand identity and their marketing heritage.  These ads are right in line with the identity they want to portray.  Remember that this was a TV interview; the last sentence starts to ramble a bit, but you get the idea.  She says:

We know that the brand has always stood for those moments of optimism. And the way that we manifest that today is in the open happiness campaign. And so, if you think of all the way back to the depression era, even then and to our hilltop spot of Mean Joe Green, it’s always been about how can Coke unite; how can Coke bring that moment of pause, that refreshing happiness to someone’s lives and that human connection. This year as you look at our creative [unintelligible], in a world of divide, Coke unites in our border spot. It’s the same story in our siege commercial where it’s an epic story around two animal kingdom communities and at the end of the spot good wins over evil, but then good celebrates with a Coke. And so it’s continuing to have Coca Cola be a critical role of the message and the brand and the impetus for the uniting and celebrating that moment of happiness.

You can watch the whole interview here.

Coca Cola ads have a cohesive message precisely because their Marketing department begins with the message they wish to communicate and then look for new, creative ways to get the message across.

For Pepsi, it very well may be an accident

Why is Pepsi all over the place with their advertising?  This year it probably has a lot to do with the fact that these ads didn’t come from the Pepsi marketing department.  They were the winners of a contest which pitted customer created ads against each other and public voting decided which ads made the big game.  Cool idea.  Horrible strategy.

Coca Cola started with a message and then looked to communicate it.

The creators of the Pepsi commercials started with a gag and looked for a way to tie in a Pepsi product.  It’s no wonder they ended up appealing to the least common denominator of low brow humor.

What’s It Got to Do with Ministry?

How do you communicate?

Do you start with a message and look for a way to communicate it?  Do you take the time to sit down in the Word stay there until the Spirit speaks, and then, knowing what God wants you to speak to your people, look for the right means to get that message across?

Or do you start with a gag — maybe it’s a killer illustration you heard somewhere, or a hilarious video you saw on YouTube, or an awesome clip from the latest must seeblockbuster — and then spend all week trying to figure out some spiritual message you can tie in so you have an excuse to use it?

I don’t know which way you normally approach preaching and teaching, but I do know which way works better…

What do you communicate?

Have you taken the time to pray through the core values of your ministry?  Do you know what your ministry stands for? Do your teaching, preaching, activities and marketing keep coming back to this core calling and identity in Christ?

Or is your programming driven by a mixture of opportunity and popular appeal?  If it’s the latter, don’t be surprised if you keep coming back to the low road of courting to the least common denominator.  And don’t be surprised if your congregation has no clue what it is you are selling.