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Adelaide campaign brings
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| A poster in Frome Street, Adelaide, promoting the ‘Jesus. All about life’ campaign run in August 2005 by the Bible Society in Australia (New South Wales) in partnership with local churches. Australia. Photo: BSA (NSW) (AUS05DJ-76.JPG) |
AUSTRALIA — A five-week campaign run by churches and the Bible Society in Australia (New South Wales) in Adelaide in the neighbouring state of South Australia attracted not only many responses from people eager to know more but a wide range of media coverage. This included a feature article in The Australian, the country’s only national broadsheet newspaper, which discussed the reasons for falling church attendance and described the initiative as “the most intense and broad-based campaign in this country to try to reclaim lost ground”.
In response to research showing that, in post-modern society, fewer and fewer people find churches appealing, the Bible Society and its partners, which included Christian organisations such as Campus Crusade and Ministry Blue, decided to base their campaign around Jesus himself, whose teachings people continue to value. They chose the slogan ‘Jesus. All about life’ and made it their goal to raise awareness of the person of Jesus and his message and to encourage people to find out more about the abundant life he offers.
The result was the country’s first-ever outreach campaign using prime-time media to communicate with a whole city. The most visible element was six television advertisements aimed at young people, families and members of the ‘baby boom’ generation. With these advertisements showing 140 times in the five weeks from August 8, it was hoped that they would be seen 10 times by 90 per cent of the population. Other methods of bringing the message of ‘Jesus. All about life’ into people’s everyday lives included radio and newspaper advertisements, around 30 billboards, a mail-out of 250,000 postcards and a dedicated web site (www.allaboutlife.com.au).
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| The Swanborough family being filmed to appear in the television advertisements for the ‘Jesus. All about life’ campaign aimed at young families. The Bible Society in Australia (New South Wales) and local churches ran the campaign in Adelaide in August 2005. Australia. Photo: BSA (NSW) (AUS05DJ-75.JPG) |
Strong support from local churches was vital to the success of the campaign. More than 1,000 ‘quiet Christians’ from congregations across Adelaide received training in responding to colleagues or neighbours who expressed interest in knowing more. Their efforts were in turn supported by the Bible Society, which supplied pamphlets, response books, prayer cards and a DVD-based course which looks at topics such as ‘Can I Trust the Bible?’ and ‘My Relationship with God’. In total, local churches ran more than 400 related events.
The immediate outcomes of this high-profile project included 8,500 visits to the web site and the 1,500 requests that the Bible Society has received for an information pack containing a pamphlet and a copy of the response book. The real success of the campaign cannot be measured in the short term, however, according to Michael Chant, Executive Director of the Bible Society in Australia (South Australia).
Real aim
“We have a culture that’s looking for answers,” he says. “The real aim of the campaign was to trigger thoughts and conversations, especially among 20- to 30-year-olds.”
There are now plans to launch ‘Jesus. All about life’ in Canberra in March or April next year, and organising committees have also been set up in Brisbane and Melbourne. (WR 397/24 - 11.05) [2 photos]