A missed PR opportunity!
In Norfolk to support Canon Christopher Davies, the outgoing Rector of Wimbledon who was taking up a new post in the Diocese, I popped into Norwich for a quick tour of the Cathedral. No sooner had I parked the car than two exceptionally good looking, well-dressed and well-groomed young men loomed towards me, bearing banana-split smiles. At first thought were going to ask me the way to the cathedral but their first words: “how are you today?” put me straight. It was clear I was going to have to make a quick getaway, having satisfied my professional curiosity as to whether they were Moonies or Mormons.
“I’m Tom, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints…”
Mormons then; not that I said so. They hate the phrase and I am far too polite to use it. Also out of politeness, I accepted an offer of ‘some literature’ in place of an attempted conversion.
‘Literature’ turned out to be a ridiculous misnomer. What I was actually given was one of the worst pieces of religious marketing I have ever encountered; a frighteningly old-fashioned tract with a cover featuring a strawberry-blonde haired, soft-focus Christ cradling a lamb, against a backdrop of what looked like the Tora Bora mountains and titled ‘The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ’ (I’d love to show a picture but that would be breach of copyright so you’ll just have to use your imagination).
The inside was worse still. Drawings and photographs of impossibly beautiful, outrageously wholesome people you would be terrified to approach unless they told you had a hair out of place, accompanied rambling script printed in an ancient font that could have come out of the Ark, or at least been run off the printing press when the church was originally founded in the 1820s.
Why they think it would encourage any interest among anyone actually living in the 21st century is beyond me. This kind of tat is destined to attract only nostalgic over nineties or misogynist bores who want to return to the ‘good old days’ when men wouldn’t dream of wearing anything but ‘suits or nice pants’ and women and girls only ‘dresses and skirts’ (and I quote the tract here). Of course, they would be disappointed when they realised the church actually abandoned polygamy over 100 years ago.
Only later did I realise I should have bombarded them back, forcing my business card on them on the grounds that their organisation was clearly in dire need of a life-changing conversion to 21st century marketing and PR techniques. A re-design and a re-write of this travesty of a tract was the least that should be done as a matter of urgency, ahead of a complete re-brand and re-launch of the entire organisation.
Then again, other may be thrilled to hear the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hands out singularly unattractive tracts and is failing to take steps to update its image. Mark Twain once described The Book of Mormon as ‘literary chloroform’ and it seems nothing has changed since. I’ll be putting the tract to good use when I next suffer a sleepless night...
“I’m Tom, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints…”
Mormons then; not that I said so. They hate the phrase and I am far too polite to use it. Also out of politeness, I accepted an offer of ‘some literature’ in place of an attempted conversion.
‘Literature’ turned out to be a ridiculous misnomer. What I was actually given was one of the worst pieces of religious marketing I have ever encountered; a frighteningly old-fashioned tract with a cover featuring a strawberry-blonde haired, soft-focus Christ cradling a lamb, against a backdrop of what looked like the Tora Bora mountains and titled ‘The Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ’ (I’d love to show a picture but that would be breach of copyright so you’ll just have to use your imagination).
The inside was worse still. Drawings and photographs of impossibly beautiful, outrageously wholesome people you would be terrified to approach unless they told you had a hair out of place, accompanied rambling script printed in an ancient font that could have come out of the Ark, or at least been run off the printing press when the church was originally founded in the 1820s.
Why they think it would encourage any interest among anyone actually living in the 21st century is beyond me. This kind of tat is destined to attract only nostalgic over nineties or misogynist bores who want to return to the ‘good old days’ when men wouldn’t dream of wearing anything but ‘suits or nice pants’ and women and girls only ‘dresses and skirts’ (and I quote the tract here). Of course, they would be disappointed when they realised the church actually abandoned polygamy over 100 years ago.
Only later did I realise I should have bombarded them back, forcing my business card on them on the grounds that their organisation was clearly in dire need of a life-changing conversion to 21st century marketing and PR techniques. A re-design and a re-write of this travesty of a tract was the least that should be done as a matter of urgency, ahead of a complete re-brand and re-launch of the entire organisation.
Then again, other may be thrilled to hear the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hands out singularly unattractive tracts and is failing to take steps to update its image. Mark Twain once described The Book of Mormon as ‘literary chloroform’ and it seems nothing has changed since. I’ll be putting the tract to good use when I next suffer a sleepless night...
posted by Suzanne Evans at
Monday, August 07, 2006
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