The Gospel Blimp, Revisited

'Black Sunday' but with an evangelical twist

The ad executives were huddled in the CEO's office, stumped for ideas.

CEO: "The Hobby Lobby owners have invested a billion dollars to rebrand Jesus. So what have we got so far? Cindy?"

Cindy: "Remember that E-Trade Super Bowl ad with the talking baby in 2013? We recently mocked up a test version of some talking babies discussing Jesus' saying, 'Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.' It didn't test well with the over-five demographic. Plus there were problems with child-labor laws, yada yada yada..."

CEO: "OK. Anybody else? Come on, people!"

Bill: "Sir, I don't get it. Why rebrand? Can't we just update what everybody already knows about Jesus? After all, He has perhaps the most widely recognized Name on earth."

CEO: "Back up. I think you just hit on the answer, Bill. You said 'I don't get it.' Turn that around, buddy! 'He gets us!' That's our slogan! Now, we need to get that name 'Jesus' out there somehow."

Jessica: "We could produce, like, 20 short, black-and-white commercial spots using old news footage that would cost us next to nothing. Buy time during football games, and stir up some buzz in preparation for our big product release. Oh yeah, I forgot - the product was already released 2,000 years ago. Anyway..."

Steve: "Analytics tells us that football is a great venue for this. Jesus' message was all non-violent, prince-of-peace-type stuff. Great contrast to the brutal violence of the game out on the gridiron. 'Turn the other cheek' could really stand out from all the taunting, trash talking and prideful posturing by the players."

CEO: "And this could all culminate at the Super Bowl, folks! Millions of captive audience members, forced to watch Super Bowl commercials because of social pressure to keep up with the latest pop culture."

Walter: "Um, I'm looking at this huge budget. Couldn't we just distribute the funds to the poor, and promote that? Seems that would be more in line with His message."

CEO: "The Hobby Lobby folks already scratched that idea. They want something with more lasting results. Giving $1 billion away to the poor would a one-and-done deal, tantamount to flushing it down the toilet. But they'll be able to re-purpose the ad spots for in-house use, and maybe even translate them later for use overseas."

Bill: Whoa! I just had a thought. What if we promoted our ad campaign with a sort of "Gospel Blimp" that could freely cross national boundaries and drop gospel tracts on unsuspecting towns and cities. It could start in Alaska and drift across the continental United States, ending up down at the Super Bowl in Phoenix."

CEO: "I love where you're going with this."

Bill: "The culmination of the campaign would see the blimp slowly descend over the 50-yard line and then eject thousands of gospel tracts into the stands. Sort of a 'Black Sunday' climax, but with an evangelical twist."

CEO: "Brilliant! Get moving on contacting companies that lease blimps, dirigibles or weather balloons, then print up the tracts. What could go wrong?