Well, the marketing campaign went viral, at least within Episcopalian circles, but I don’t think it generated the response the church was looking for. This isn’t about the ads, though if you are curious, both at what they were and why I, along with so many others, was both taken aback and, well, offended, you can find excellent blog postings [here] and [here] that sum things up nicely. In short: easy sarcasm is not the way to go. Humor and self-awareness play key roles in advertising, but I expect more from my church than cheap and cynical.
This is about how you respond when you fall on your face, as an institution, and what your obligations for transparency might be, especially when you are a religious entity, and not a corporation.
First things first: when I saw the ads, and had processed both what they meant and my reaction to them, I sent a tweet to @iamepiscopalian, expressing my dismay. To my credit, they responded, and indicated they would pass on my concerns. This is how you use social media to make people feel like they are being heard, and I appreciated hearing back right away.
That said, the rest of their response is pretty much a PR failure. A glance over at the page where the billboards/postcards/advertising materials were made available reveals that they are no longer available. In their place is the following:
Many thanks to those of you who have given us constructive comments on the billboard and postcard suggestions we had posted. We agree that the concept needs more work, and we are going back to the drawing board with your ideas in mind. We sincerely appreciate your feedback and encourage you to keep sharing your ideas and, when appropriate, your criticisms. We take them all seriously.
I’m not sure what this is supposed to be. It’s not an apology, for one, to all of the members of the church who support and love the institution for a misguided attempt at an ad campaign. It’s not public, in that to get to that page you had to know where the materials were in the first place. There’s no acknowledgment that the ads were removed on the Facebook page, the Twitter feed, or the news feature on the website.
We’re going back to the drawing board, the statement says, but it offers no insight as to how that drawing board came to be in the first place. I have to tell you, as someone who has been a professional communicator for the majority of her career, the series feels to me like something an outside firm was paid to come up with, something glib and hip and catchy. I could be wrong, but I’m curious as to who from within the church and its various committees was part of the focus group that thought these were the kinds of messages we wanted to share about our church and its beliefs. Was there a focus group at all? How are you going to change your process for next time? You encourage us to, when appropriate, share our criticisms? What does that even mean?!
I’d love to give the public affairs team the benefit of the doubt. It’s Friday evening, after all, and maybe they just wanted to get the material down before tackling this next week. But this isn’t something you can do halfway.
In short, it’s the kind of non-apology apology I would expect from Wall Street, not the nerve center of the Episcopal Church. But maybe being just a few miles down the road changes your perspective on things. If so, I’d suggest coming out to Middle America and spending some time with folks who speak a little plainer, and see a little clearer.
There is so much the Episcopal Church has going for it. I know that we need bodies in pews to keep the operation going, I appreciate and understand that. But if you’ve been paying attention, there’ve been a series of articles [like this one] that suggest, in my humble opinion, that the Episcopal Church is better positioned that most to be able to capture the Xers and Millenials that are seeking a faith home. Here you have a church that is rooted in tradition, with a beautiful liturgy, and a faith foundation that seeks to embrace, not isolate.
We celebrate our unity in Christ while honoring our differences, always putting the work of love before uniformity of opinion. I look at the website of the Episcopal Church and I see example after example of how the Church is doing good works, how it is working to bring people together in Jesus’ name. ERD. Jubilee. Eco-Justice. If you are looking for messages that speak to those seeking a faith home that engages the world around them rather than holds itself apart, you’re going to find a lot more meaty material here. Maybe not in 140 characters or less, but then again:
Jesus lives. Come share the Good News. There’s room in our tent for all of you.
We’re a forgiving sort, we Christians, we Episcopalians. Hey, 815, have a little faith. You can and should do better with this.
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