United Church of God still struggles to make its self relevant to the world around them. After an outrageously expensive billboard campaign that was an epic failure, the UCG has had three different media blasts in news papers. LCG claims it will be reaching 2.4 million people.
You would have thought the worlds most educated men would have been paying attention to newspaper trends that indicated that readership of hard copy papers is dropping dramatically. But no. Its more fun to waste tithe money on failed projects than it is helping widows, orphans and those disadvantaged in the church or their neighboring communities.The United Church of God will conduct its third and final test of full-page literature advertisements in the coupon sections of U.S. Sunday newspapers on November 1, 2015.
The first two tests (May 17 and August 9, 2015) provided critical cost and cost-per-response data. We expect this additional test will generate conclusive statistical information on conducting a rollout into numerous other cities in 2016. In this latest effort we will test four (4) new ads featuring the following popular Bible study aids: Does God Exist?, What Happens After Death?, Why Does God Allow Suffering? and Are We Living in the Time of the End?
A total circulation of 2,440,000 literature ads will occur in the following 54 cities/counties on Sunday, November 1:
When asked about the results, UCG had this to say:
Their first two attempts never reached their goal. Obviously the brethren were not praying and fasting as hard as they should have been. Jesus Christ has had to delay his coming yet again because no one is ready....the first test gave us reasonable results, but not as good as we desired. The second test was a nice improvement on the first, with CPRs approaching our acceptable range. This third test we pray will build upon that. Then, we can determine the best regions and strategies to use going forward with larger circulation figures.
The only way the UCG will grow in numbers is if they build church buildings for the local congregations. However most UCG congregations are too small to make that practical. Even if some congregations built church buildings who would want to attend for very long a church that has a weird set of doctrinal beliefs. Lets face it legalism and the strict keeping of days as holy isn't what people are looking for in a church. The trend in religion is to less structured churches and less legalism. People are looking for churches that are relivent to their lives.
ReplyDeleteWhat rationale? No more than, "We did this type of advertising back in Mr. Armstrong's day."
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the last time I bought a newspaper. And these ads would be part of the wad of restaurant and store flyers, with Buy 1 Get One Free coupons, that were the first thing extracted -- and tossed into Recycling -- when I did.
So you spent people's tithe money on that and dare them to question the wisdom, the effectiveness?
Sure glad I'm now on the outside looking in.
I am speechless! Until this post, I had no idea that printed newspapers still existed! I can't remember the last time I saw a newspaper box at a shopping center or a newspaper in someone's driveway.
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ReplyDelete“Their first two attempts never reached their goal. Obviously the brethren were not praying and fasting as hard as they should have been. Jesus Christ has had to delay his coming yet again because no one is ready.”
#1. The UCG people do NOT fast and pray. They gossip and slander.
#2. There will be no extra delay. The Great Tribulation will come for the UCG people right on schedule.
Of course they will only burn the sucker's money on these Quixotic follies AFTER they fully fund their Secret Executive & Ministerial Salaries!
ReplyDeleteMad Magazine now accepts paid advertising! Basil Wolverton is rolling over in his grave! Why are there no advertising campaigns in Mad Magazine? I believe that this demographic of readers would be perfect for the COG!
ReplyDeleteIf at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Even I would say that UCG will eventually hit upon a marketing strategy that's deceptive and duplicitous enough to work, except that their product is so defective, even if they lure some suckers in with clever enough lies, how long will they stay before they realize the bait-and-switch?
ReplyDeleteAs was said above, strict legalism, isn't what people are in the market for. They're also not in the market for cults, abusive authoritarianism, fringe doctrines, or 70-year-old racist pseudo-science and pseudo-history. Armstrongism is a tough sell.
HWA came along right after the Great Depression then WWII. People were tired the country was tired. There was no TV no internet very little intertainment. All people had was a radio and along came HWA, he captured people's interest. He spoke like someone who had answers to life's questions he sold his bill of goods. Today we have had every kind of advertising possible thrown at us. We get commercials after commercial pushed on us. Every infomercial had the best product possible. Along comes UCG with a newspaper ad. Who is going to respond to a newspaper ad? It's a shame they keep stumbling around.
ReplyDeleteHey, Uncle Roddy is in Charlotte. LCG should sponsor one of the NASCAR racers! Imagine the old Ambassador logo with the lion, lamb, and little child on the hood of a hot Camry! Oops, forgot! Toyotas in NASCAR are probably one of the signs of the end to them!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, the ACOGs have no clue as to how to establish common ground and reach people with their message these days. The lack of success in this area is indicative of lack of guidance. Inspiration is just not coming through for them.
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ReplyDeleteThe UCG is already full of enough godless bums behaving badly. Why try to sucker in new people for these godless UCG bums to harass? And why would anyone want to go to the UCG and put up with the godless bums who are already there?
This is no time for the UCG to grow. It is time for the so-called UCG to split again.
All gods are make believe figments of the human imagination. I suspect that it very well could be that Christians, deep down, are afraid that atheists are right. Yet they are too frightened to even entertain the possibility of there being no supreme being. Ever try to have an honest conversation with a Christian about doubts of their alleged cosmic wizard's existence? They tend to avoid the question altogether as taboo, call you all sorts of names or threaten you with eternal damnation for even bringing up the idea. However, when one takes the time to study comparative religions and their associative god men of lore, it becomes readily apparent how many of the ideas in which people believe don't really make any sort of sense. For example, in ancient times, it was common for everyone to believe in many gods. You may or may not be familiar with the Greek gods and their Roman counterparts, of which there were many: Zeus (the Roman god being Jupiter), Poseidon (Neptune), Hades (Pluto), Aphrodite (Venus), Eros (Cupid), and so on. The Greeks and Romans had literally dozens of different gods and goddesses, each with their own area of importance and responsibility. Many of these names have entered our language and are part of our culture. (For instance, did you know that Nike was the Greek goddess of victory? God is derived from Zeus and church is derived from Kirk – No, I don’t mean Captain Kirk, either.) Even in the Christian Bible, a careful reading will show that there is more than one god, each with its own personality. For instance, many biblical scholars believe that the Bible derives from a variety of different literary sources, and each of these describes what seems to be a different god. Religions that claim to worship the one true god do not all refer to the same god. Moreover, when you look deeper into the details of religious beliefs, you see even more disagreement. Almost all religions believe that theirs is the true path — the only path to proper worship of their god and salvation. However, virtually all religions contradict one another in many important areas. There is no way they can all be true, and in fact, there doesn't seem to be any way in which even one of them can be true.
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