Read Between the Ps

This Christmas, St Mattews Church ( Auckland, New Zealand ) decided to celebrate in a different way – it put up a controversial billboard on Joseph and Mary, challenging Christians the very foundation of their religion! Result – Thousands of criticisms, hundreds of praises, and tones of vague logic. But most importantly, global publicity of the campaign, engaging half of the “ clicker universe ”! The advert was designed by M&C Saatchi, Auckland , with the brief that it had to be sufficiently provocative to keep most other churches from allowing it. It was designed to challenge stereotypes about the way that Jesus was conceived, and get people talking about the Christmas story. The initial intent behind the campaign was to invite people to think about the virgin birth and the nature of God, be open to more than one Christian way to think about God, to promote the Progressive view of Jesus having 2 human parents and God being the power of love in his life and to invite people out...

Whenever a new medium emerges, marketers run behind it, exploiting it till the time it is coined as “ common media ” or till the time their infatuation with that medium is over. Look around, and you would say the same thing for newspapers, magazines, and now Billboards as well. Initially, they were billboards – just plain simple billboards. An advertiser just wanted to stand next to the road. Not speak anything, but simply stand. If someone passed by, he would talk silently, without caring much if the other person listened or not. Then slowly, more people came, and everyone wanted to stand next to the road. The bigger ones then wanted to move a step further. They shouted! Some….just went on the road itself! And so emerged much more aggressive forms of Outdoor Advertising - ambient, guerilla, virals and so on and so forth What is exciting about Ambients? Well, if nothing, they do grab attention. And some of them move into the viral phase as well, creating more and more attention. The ...

Boredstop had a nice billboard published sometime back. A strong way to communicate the "risks" involved in your life.....for Nationwide Insurance . Located in the north side of the Atlas Building in downtown Columbus Ohio, this billboard seems to be doing more rounds online than it would have attracted offline. Great execution - Just that one needs to see all the 3 billboards at the same time, and of course, in the right sequence! Incidentally, a closer look just made me think - is this an ad for Coop's paints as well? ;-) So, do you want to go and check the parking area once? ;-) [via Ilya of Billboardom ]