1 easy way to understand culture.
Mar 3rd by JonA few days ago, I had the chance to connect with the guys over at churchmarketingsucks.com. If you’ve never checked out that site, it’s worth a visit. One of the things we talked about was how people can get better at understanding culture.
I think there are a million ways to develop a better cultural awareness and I’m certainly not an expert. But I did learn one thing a few years ago that forever changed the way I look at culture. And it’s simple. Here it is:
I study advertising.
Instead of dismissing it as noise and clutter, though it often is, I study advertising because it’s the clearest, most direct look into our culture. Why do I think that? For a few reasons.
1. Advertisers spend millions of dollars on research.
You, me, churches, we don’t have the money to do a 100 person focus group. We don’t have the time to build detailed case studies and a usability lab with a reverse mirror. We can’t run tests and experiment with different messaging. But advertisers can. And they do. So when you see an ad, what you’re seeing is the reflection of the very best thinking in what people really care about. It’s a great way to understand where the hearts and minds of the nation are.
2. I write action, not art.
I love art, but to be honest, that’s not what I try to create. I try to create action. I want what I write to be a wick in a stick of dynamite, a catalyst that starts something new. I fail at it most of the time, but that’s what I attempt. Advertising is the same way. It’s not designed to just entertain. It’s designed to inspire to change, to get you to change your mind or your actions. And you can learn a lot about the issues and ideas that are encouraging action by studying advertising.
3. It reveals trends.
A few years ago, North Point (Andy Stanley’s church) hired me to help come up with some ideas for the Married group. At the time, eBay had a new campaign called “IT.” Instead of telling you about the millions of items they had on their site, eBay essentially said, “Whatever your IT is, we have it. Tell us what IT is and we’ll help you find it.” Then I saw an ad for VW where they measured trunk space not in cubic feet, but in “you.” They didn’t show a kayak or a football or camping gear, they simply showed an empty car and said, “this car fits 100 cubic feet of ‘you.’” Both of these ads represented what companies have known for a while, the power has shifted. Twenty years ago, companies could tell consumers, “Here are the three products you can choose from. Buy these.” Now, thanks to the Internet and globalization, consumers have the power. They get to make the choice. And companies had to customize what they offered. Same with churches. The “one size fits all” approach stopped working years ago. You can see this with the development of different types of services. Gone are the days of “you’ll sing hymns and you’ll like them.” Now, churches are doing a better job to listen and react to the changing needs of the communities they serve. The core still stays the same. The core message of Christ remains forever unchanged, but we’re learning how to reach people in new ways.
Ultimately, the best way to understand people is to actually interact with people. Imagine that. And it’s easy to dismiss church marketing as something gross and manipulative. I understand that, in part because I don’t like church marketing. I like smart evangelism. If I was going to be thoughtful and deliberate about sharing Christ with a neighbor, I would want to do the same with a brochure I created to reach my entire neighborhood.
My favorite way to study marketing and therefore culture is the “One Show
That’s my thought on understanding culture.
Comments
/agree on the idea that advertising is a great way to distill and illustrate cultural insight. I spent some time teaching English in China, and part of Sichuan University's requirements were that the teacher try and get an understanding of American culture into the students' hands. One of our best projects was when we took some full-page ads out of American magazines and had the students analyze the underlying themes and messages. Advertising is a great way to learn about the values of a culture as a whole. Reviewing and examining one's own responses to a given advertisement can be a great quick-and-dirty self-examination technique. It's amazing how often I find myself drawn one way or another by an advertisement to a degree that I hadn't anticipated… definitely a sobering thought when living in a materialistic world.
“I want what I write to be a wick in a stick of dynamite, a catalyst that starts something new. I fail at it most of the time, but that’s what I attempt.”
I disagree. AT LEAST once a week (usually more), I hear myself saying, “I was reading Stuff Christians Like, and this post [made me think/spoke to me/encouraged me/inspired me]…” The Lord uses what you attempt in my life. In a big way.
One of the best things about Jon is that he realizes that if it's in his life, it's more than likely in the majority of our lives. i.e. the "Boomerang" post adjacent to this one; He knows that we probably struggle with a boomerang, or at least those feelings ("by now" and "still") because he does, and he realizes his experience isn't a unique one. Recognizing the common ground we have with other believers makes our ministry hugely effective.
In other words, "+1!!! Jon r0x!!!!"
I second that disagreement, Michelle. When I read that sentence, my immediate thought was "you do not fail." I reference SCL allllll the time, both internally and with friends. As I was reading the boomerang post, I was thinking that I should encourage my BFF to read SCL regularly. I know it would enrich her life as it has mine.
I look at the movies out to help me see what culture wants. When "Drag me to Hell" and "Hang over" came out, I thought, "Hmm, we want to go to hell drunk."
See, you didn't really need to read this one, because you've already got it.
I actually think you're onto something. 20-30 years ago, movies about the future were (mostly) full of hope and cool technology. Nowadays, they are full of violence and end times stuff.
How do we market hope? I think we need to go viral.
That’s so true! I hadn’t realized it before. And I very much like the idea of viral hope!
You are so correct! I was wondering just the other day about why movies about future are all destruction and stuff, when years ago, it was effects of technology.
I think it is because people are just sick and without hope. I mean, like soul-sick
Viral hope that morphs into a revival would be great!!
Jon — The whole marketing does promote a gag reflex, until I realize that I use it myself. When I have an idea or a project or – gulp – a Savior that I want others to 'buy into', i fall headlong into marketing principles and ideas. It's really a study of how people react toward certain stimuli and then using those presumed reactions to better frame your message.
David Rupert, Red Letter Believers, "Salt and Light," http://www.RedLetterBelievers.com
I will admit that I have never been a big fan of marketing either. I like your thoughts on the subject though and haven't thought of many of them. So, thank you. I would like to stress your statement that the core of the Gospel never changes. Unfortunately, I have been at several Churches that were willing to allow culture to mold the Gospel instead of simply being an effective way to present it. It never had a good outcome and never will.
Church marketing may be a necessary evil, but there would be a much diminished need for it if we, the "Church," were as willing to tell our friends and coworkers about God's blessings in our lives are we about the latest sport scores or American Idol vote. (Yes, I fall into this category as well). Why is it I am always eager to show off my new phone but shy for showing off my savior?
Love it!
Here's my question though or maybe dilemma, whichever. How then do I take my understanding of culture generally speaking and apply it locally?
That seems to be the biggest failure that I have in this arena–I see, let's say–AWESOME! I want to take AWESOME and show it to people at church that are wondering how to reach our culture with the Gospel. I say, here's AWESOME and they say well we're not ready for AWESOME. So I tweak AWESOME so that it is more palatable and then they want to run it through boards and approvals and accordingly that takes forever and when it comes out the other end it is no longer AWESOME, it's vanilla and then they are wondering why I don't run with their vanilla and spread the Good News with vanilla.
Thoughts?
Wow, that was Seth Godin like
I loved the "wick in a stick of dynamite" word picture! That's exactly what I'd like my writing to do . . . to propel people to action, to act as a catalyst for change. May I use that phrase on my blog (properly credited, of course)?
Umm, can I humbly ask that someone talk about how the Holy Spirit can be involved in our 'Marketing?' How does the Church stay Jesus-enamored and Spirit-led and 'do Marketing?' I'm thinking of Francis Chan's excellent book, "Forgotten God."
I'm hoping that you are referring to advertisers and marketers because they track their (our) culture well, but I'm concerned about using world-driven marketing techniques at the expense of Spirit-driven (what word to insert here???) 'techniques.' It seems like some churches are getting it right..Mars Hill (Driscoll) and Village (Chandler) seem to have stayed connected to God and are not selling out to sheer marketing for the sake of increasing market share in their communities…
Anyway, just thinking……brilliant blog and I too love the wick and dynamite thing………
Good questions Chris. I think those are ones we should wrestle with. I guess I would say, are you referring to the Chan book you bought in a store? The book that was advertised and marketed? And the Village Church and Chandler, he was great at Catalyst, which is a conference I saw marketed. It depends where you draw the line. Some would say that having a church sign is the same as church marketing, others would argue against it. Above all, I would say that to me, the Holy Spirit can be involved in every area of my life. I work in marketing and surely the Holy Spirit does not take a time out when I go to work.
I work for a business whose management refuses to allow us to advertise. We have a sign over our store, but not one in the plaza. We run no ads in the paper. I've never seen us in a TV commercial. There are people in the town who've never even heard of us, and we've been here for going on three years. Management says they want to only attract a "certain kind" of clientele. I'm not sure who exactly these people are, but I know this: if more people knew, more people would come. The people who find us are those who are already in the neighborhood, and curious enough to wander in. But those people are few, and our store doesn't do well.
What an ad could do, if we were allowed one, is make people more curious – more people would know that a place like our store exists, and might consider it when they realize that they have a need which we are uniquely tailored to meet. The resulting problem though, would be this. We would no longer have enough resources to meet the needs of everyone who walked through the door. My store is insistent on not merely assisting customers, but teaching them how to use what we sell, so that they will never go back to cheap imitations. If we started a media blitz, we'd get more people in, but how many would be there just as sightseers?
I'm not mentioning my workplace, because it's not important. It's not a church, but I think it's a reasonable metaphor for the dilemma a church faces. A church wants curious people, people who know or hope the church can meet their needs, not sightseers. A church needs enough willing teachers, enough humble mentors, that when they announce themselves to the world, there won't be a rush of "shoplifters" – people who wander in, take some teaching away that they have no idea how to use, and go off and hurt themselves and others with a warped view of the Gospel.
What it boils down to: advertisers know people. They know how to appeal to what people want. They know how to make them curious. They know how to tell you about a new person/place/thing which meets a need you have, or one you didn't even know you had. What is so unChristian about that? That's what we're supposed to be doing, right? Dealing with others in an understanding way – showing them they have a need left unmet – making them curious as to how this new thing, this "Gospel" can meet it?
Sorry for the extensive post. I guess I had more to say than I thought.
I'm really glad to hear you say that the Holy Spirit is with you during your day…I'm trying to learn more about Him since the church I grew up in kind of ignored Him….
I certainly get it that we need to be savvy to our culture (yes, I'm reading "The Culturally Savvy Christian" by Dick Staub right now…), and I see it that old ways of communicating won't necessarily 'work' in a new culture. My concern though is that we are in danger of diluting the message in trying to 'make it relevant.' I'm afraid we are in danger of forfeiting the message of the cross because the culture may find it repugnant. I'm concerned that while trying to be cool we are going to forget that we are aliens, strangers in the world…..we're ragamuffins, to use Rich Mullins' term (and yes I know I'm risking irrelevancy by quoting a dead guy who never wore black Rob Bell glasses).
I guess I'm ok with letting people know what our church is doing, and even using advertising and such to connect with the unsaved. What I disagree with (and which I'm not even sure your post or your friends at church marketingsucks.com are saying), is the idea of some church growth expert telling the 'leadership' of a church, "you want to know how to grow your church? Hey we'll tell you: identify your target market, make a ripping website and get a killer sound system and hire some metrosexual musicians (like Zakk Fouteknote!) and get a really dynamic guy in the pulpit. Doesn't matter what he says, just be what the focus groups say they want and you'll see! If you build it, they will come!!"
Ok that's harsh. But truly I'm not a fan of megachurch 1.0 that did these kinds of 'market research' and made their decisions based on demographics and research. Have you noticed I haven't mentioned God yet? Where does Jesus fit into the demographics? Will the hip pastor preach on being transformed by the renewing of our minds? And carrying our crosses? Or being hated on account of Christ?
I'm really hoping the Staub book I mentioned above will help me get how to do this. We need to be experts about our culture without selling out (or buying in to) our culture. "Reaching out without selling out" someone said.
If I may be so bold as to take a bit more space, I'd like to stick in the Table of Contents from the book:
SAVVY
1 The Popular Culture We Are In
2 The Christianity We Are In
3 The Story We Are In
SERIOUS
4 God's Deep Presence
5 God's Transforming Presence
6 God's loving Presence
SKILLED
7 Countering Culture Like Aliens
8 Communicating Culture Like ambassadors
9 Creating Culture Like Artists
I think this looks pretty good…crucial I think will be the middle section on God. Barna research about the Church shows a pretty stunning ignorance of even the basic attributes of God.
Anyway, thanks for the dialogue…as you can see I struggle with this some. I just want all of us, Jesus' bride, to be true to Him whose (*mixed metaphor*) road is narrow, not broad………
"So when you see an ad, what you’re seeing is the reflection of the very best thinking in what people really care about. It’s a great way to understand where the hearts and minds of the nation are."
Yes, but advertising tends to try to appeal to the lowest common denominator. A lot of the time it demonstrates attitudes that (I feel) Christians should be wary of touching with a ten-foot pole. Now, obviously, no one is going to use a picture of a woman in a bikini to get people to go to a certain church… or at least I really hope so. But the point is we ought to be really wary of the things we pick up from studying advertising, and examine them to make sure they're acceptable from a Christian POV.
Gone are the days of “you’ll sing hymns and you’ll like them.”
Still happening, I'm afraid (at our church, over the past few weeks…).
I really appreciate a church who takes people–individuals–into account. It is loving and thoughtful and proactive for the Kingdom. It's Jesus-like. Good post.
The Vineyard movement gets this. We often talk about Message/Market/Method – The Message (God's love shown through Jesus) stays the same, but the Market (the particular community or people group we are trying to reach) changes, and so our Method (how we go about reaching those people) must change appropriately.
I never thought about commercials as a reflection on society because of focus groups. That is one scary thought…[youtube UXrnV_PoJMU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXrnV_PoJMU youtube]
I never thought about commercials using focus groups and therefore being a reflection of society.
[youtube JI3Y1auTFpU&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI3Y1auTFpU&fe... youtube]
I almost use "Clothing Drive" instead of "Swear Jar", but I chickened out!
LOL!!!
[...] 1 easy way to understand culture. « Stuff Christians Like – Jon Acuff (tags: advertising culture church) [...]
[...] Writers (or anyone, really) can learn a thing or two about advertising and cultural awareness. “I love art, but to be honest, that’s not what I [...]
I think what people respond to most is honesty and authenticity. Even if it doesn't "flash" or "move" the message/product as quickly, people will respect it more in the long run, and it will usually resonate deeper. When Christians/churches co-opt Pop-culture themes for the sake of "maximizing" it can seem forced, and even insincere. A lot of the fundamentals of advertising kind of imply manipulation, if not outright. While advertising may be a necessity, a considerate balance should be too.
[...] Jon Acuff has a really good suggestion. Pay attention to advertising. [...]