By Ali Velazquez
The LDS Church is testing a new media campaign directed at younger families that moves away from traditional church public service ads about families and focuses on the message: “Truth Restored.”
The new multimedia campaign, which finalizes an eight-month testing period in December, is currently running in Nevada, New York and Kansas. The campaign consists of ads in radio drive time, television prime time, billboards, pass along cards, magazines and the Internet.
Kevin Kelly, advertising professor at BYU, is leading the new media campaign for the church.
“We wanted the church to stand for something,” Kelly said.
The campaign started when the LDS Church conceived the idea of having a group of professionals to help with the task of improving the way the church uses advertising to reach potential investigators.
After gathering the group of professionals, Elder M. Russell Ballard and Stephen Allen, managing director of the Missionary Department for the church, called Kelly to be the chair of the media task force and lead a group of communications professionals in the “Truth Restored” campaign.
The committee needed to come up with a new strategy. The church not only wants to reach people in general, but also younger families who have a different interaction with media, Kelly said.
“They [the LDS church] were using direct response media ads,” he said. “That just targets a small group of people.”
The committee needed to figure out what messages can reach younger families without turning people off, he said. They needed to place the ads where they could see them.
The purpose of using all types of media is to drive the audience to mormon.org Web site, which is now totally redesigned for the campaign, he said.
Although the campaign is designed to reach all types of audiences, one of its main goals is to reach people who want to research the church by themselves. That”s why the ads will ultimately direct the audience to visit mormon.org, Kelly said. Working in this project is different than just trying to advertise one more product.
“I used everything I learned in advertising,” Kelly said. “Finally we got to use the advertising knowledge for something that really matters. We have been trained to be advertisers. We now get to communicate the most important message there is.”
This “Truth Restored” campaign targets people who are searching for answers in their own lives, Allen said.
The campaign features ads of recent converts to the church talking about “what church they found,” he said.
The goal of directing people to mormon.org is to provide people, who are seeking for answers, an opportunity to do their research at their own pace and without pressure, Allen said.
“In the privacy of their home, they can learn about what we believe and then ask for missionaries,” he said.
The Internet has become a worldwide vehicle for all sorts of information, Allen said.
“We believe the Lord has given us these communication tools to spread the gospel,” he said. “We are in the process of learning how to use them.”
The campaign is based on a series of powerful questions, said Scott Swofford, media director for the church”s missionary department, in a news release.
Swofford said the questions answered by the campaign include: Does God know me? Does he care about me? Does he have a plan for me? Where do I go when I die? Do my relationships in this life go beyond the grave? Why does God allow so much suffering?
Before the campaign can be launched nation wide, it needs to be tested more than once, Kelly said.
Once the first testing period finishes, the committee will learn what they need to improve on, Kelly said.Then the campaign will be tested again, until they are satisfied that the campaign is reaching the people they want it to reach and communicating the right message, he said.
