Thursday, May 28, 2009

WTF LDS Media Planning?

Perhaps I am a little biased as a former rank-and-file member, but, in general, I would say the Mormons have done a pretty good job with their marketing and pr since, oh, . . . the 1980's.

In fact, to this day, I think the whole "Family, isn't it about . . . time?" campaign is pretty freakin' genius.


(Although the version aired in the U.S. did not have British accents; I think this is dubbed.)

But I seriously have to question this most recent move towards "interactive" media:



My friends and I were settling in to watch some hilarious SNL parody courtesy of the delightful Amy Poehler, when, ACK! It's Jesus! Offering me a Book of Mormon!

What is this trying to say? The Good Lord likes to get his chuckles, too? By watching SNL? Ironic, since the Church-owned NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City refused to carry SNL.

Maybe the Church is trying to save me from SNL? "Stop! Before you think of pushing play, remember Jesus and return to Jesus!"??

Bemused and befuddled, I watched the rest of The Dakota Fanning Show skit (hilarious, if you haven't seen it.) and learned a valuable lesson: blindly-placed banner ads (or any kinds of ads) are bad. Very bad.

*Please let it be noted that the PC display you see represented in the photo in no way reflects my own computer usage proclivities. The session of SNL viewing was done on a friend's PC and not on my own very lovely MacBook.

4 comments:

Christa Jeanne said...

Hahahaha, seriously?! That's such a random ad placement. Was that on Hulu or NBC? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have opted for an SNL spot intentionally, although that's definitely reaching for a different demographic.

(And yes, that sketch is a winner!)

Natalia said...

hilarious!

Sharrin said...

Ha ha. You should go to play "Dick in a Box" and see what comes up. That could be a fun game!

WhiteEyebrows said...

ha!!! you know more about advertising than me, but don't companies usually just buy blocks of banner ads across a huge swath of sites, oftentimes not controlling or caring which sites they are appearing on? The church is usually much more deliberate than that, to avoid potential conflicts of interest... so yeah... this is pretty weird. I assume they just saw nbc.com and thought, hey... network TV... it is safe! well... it is for the most part. even the most racy of SNL clips has never threatened my faith... just saying.