From Salon:
If you’re a resident of one of nine seemingly randomly selected mid-sized (mostly) non-coastal American cities, you’re the lucky audience for a new series of commercials advertising… Mormons. They are not quite explicitly ads for the Church of Latter-day Saints, they are just ads for Mormons, themselves. They are about how Mormons are regular people who enjoy things like surfing and riding motorcycles.
Here in New York, there’s no evidence this is happening. But I just spent a week out in the heartland, and it was inescapable. The ads are running in “Baton Rouge, Colorado Springs, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Tucson and Minneapolis.”
As far as I can tell, these 30-second ads are not yet available online. But here is an extended version of one of the ads:
The ads have been cropping up on Facebook, too:
(He’s a husband and a “Mormom“?) ;)
The Salon article continues:
Mormons, obviously, want to prove that they are regular people, just like us, and some of them are even cool, young, attractive people who ride skateboards.
But… are Mormons just trying to convince Americans that Mormons are “normal,” so that in 2012 they’ll consider voting for … Mitt Romney? (These ads are running in four or five potential swing states, after all.)
I think it’s far too cynical to suggest that these ads are an extension Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. They are just part of a larger strategy from the LDS Church to rehabilitate its image, which suffered considerably because of Proposition 8. For instance, the LDS Church also recently unveiled the new mormon.org. Mormon.org, as opposed to lds.org, is intended for nonmembers. There, you can read profiles of everyday Mormons and chat online with missionaries (a function that I imagine is frequently abused ha ha).
Maintaining a positive public image is crucial for proselytic faiths like Mormonism. So in that respect, this ad campaign and the new mormon.org make sense. But there is also a danger to Mormonism in becoming too mainstream. Mormons have long prided themselves as a “peculiar people” with peculiar doctrines. Full admission into the religious mainstream may require that Mormonism lose its uniqueness. Brigham Young was worried about this very thing:
I would rather pass through all the misery and sorrow, the troubles and trials of the Saints, than to have the religion of Christ [Mormonism] become popular with the world. … I care not what the world thinks, nor what it says, so they leave us unmolested in the exercise of our inherent rights. Take a straightforward course, and meet the jeers and frowns of the wicked. (Journal of Discourses 10: 297)
This tension within Mormonism—wanting to be accepted, but different; in the world, but not of it—is perhaps best expressed by my favorite Pat Bagley cartoon:
It will be interesting to see how the LDS Church balances popularity and peculiarity in the years to come.
Fairly sure I didn’t imagine this. I also saw little ads on facebook that said something like “Hi I am from New York, I love skateboarding, and I am a mormon.” Tried to get a screenshot but couldn’t get it to come up again.
that picture of hinckley is adorably messed up
Is the “I am a child of God” playing in the background for that ad? Haha… nice subliminal touch.
Wait no… teach me to walk in the light. Man, I’m already forgetting my primary songs.
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Oh my. They’ve gotten desperate.
As my mom always likes to remind me when we fight about the culture/church thing: “The people are not the church.”
Bahahahaha
In all seriousness, I find that bit of cruel irony completely apropriate. Laid-back surfers can’t atone for the church’s actions in things like prop-8.
I don’t any wrong in such ads. God provided way for technological development, but people mest up most of it. To advertise good things, valuable for mankind, is right thing to do. Yes, I am mormon, but I look at things from both sides to be constructive. More and more I see in my life and world around that there are great plan God is implementing 24/7. Nothing happens by chance.
It’s time to start to think the right way…
“;` i can say that this kind of topic is really worth the read ,”;
A few years prior to the onset of these ads, a similar campaign was started in New York. Church employed and organized crews would interview Mormons on the street about God, Jesus, and being Mormon. I believe the idea was to show how normal Mormons are, but the Church specified that they crew could not interview folks with facial hair nor interracial families or couples (because women with beards are not good PR I suppose). There were other stipulations, but the art director I spoke with didn’t feel comfortable mentioning them all to the lecture I attended.
The same art director worked on the concepts behind “I’m a Mormon” campaign and the first ads (I don’t know if he still does). He mentioned that this is the first time the Church has “outsourced” production. It hired a company, undoubtedly Mormon-run, that hired people of all walks of life and all opinions. The Church didn’t have as much say over these ads; I imagine it was something like they either accepted or declined the ads. Anyway, I had some interesting insights while talking to the art director. Visual culture is a huge topic of conversation right now in the art education field, and to a lesser extent in graphic design and animation. Visual culture encompasses form of visuality that are not specifically art—album covers, graphic tee, commercials, magazines, billboards, advertisements, etc. Visual culture frequently is the manifestation of the value system of a society, but interestingly, it can be the shaping force of a society’s value system. These advertisements are not representative of the Church population, and Mormons seem well aware of that and don’t mind. So the Church is representing itself as more diverse and accepting of a variety than it actually is, but to what end? While we could immediately label the ads as marketed toward non-Mormons, because they are advertising, they seem to have more effect upon the actual members. Perhaps the advertisements are meant to shape the views of membership more than non-membership. I suppose the Church could do this in general conference, but conference is boring and most Mormons won’t watch it more than once, if they do at all. The advertisements are interesting, narrative, and watchable; they enter the Mormon visual culture. Perhaps the intent is to shape Mormon culture just as much as it is to share Mormon culture.
I LOVE the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. I’m a racial mix of Cherokee and most anything else. I love my God and country. I’m grateful for the blessings he’s given me to be a member of this church. My Saviour knows me and loves me. As long as I have my Saviour everything will work out. “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.” Article of Faith n. 11
thunderbirds,