Religion in marketing

A few weeks back I talked about the Texan man who wanted to take the ‘Hell out of Hello’ and how most clients I have worked with have wanted to avoid religious evocations (http://nomenuk-naming.blogspot.com/2011/08/overcoming-subjectivity.html). I’ve discussed this with a few people since writing the article and they’ve asked me if I felt ruling out any potential association with religion is a bit excessive. To highlight the reasons why it makes companies nervous: the Advertising Standards Authority has this week ruled against Phones4U for an advert featuring a cartoon picture of Jesus.

The picture in question depicts Jesus giving the thumbs up above the words ‘Miraculous deals on Samsung Galaxy Android phones’. After receiving 98 complaints the advert was removed but this ruling means that it cannot be run again at a later date due to ‘being disrespectful to the Christian faith’ and was ‘likely to cause serious offence’. They did however point out that they realised the advert was supposed to be funny; thereby showing this up to be merely a mis-judgement rather than an attempt to upset anyone for the sake of a sale.

Now I’m not a keyboard conspiracy theorist so I won’t be claiming that the ad was run with the intention of getting banned and creating more press. Phones4U say that they intended to show a ‘light-hearted, positive and contemporary image of Christianity’ and sent individual apologies to those who complained.

Was the picture offensive? I’m not religious myself so my opinion is fairly irrelevant but a chat with some of my Christian friends and a browse through the comment sections of the news agencies who have already run this story shows some fairly mixed opinions. It’s fairly obvious that most atheists won’t see what the fuss is about but even amongst Christians the opinion was split between those who thought it was OK and those who hated it but I can’t find a single Christian who says that the inclusion of that image would actually make them buy the product. It leaves me wondering what the point of its inclusion was in the first place then. Those who will buy from a brand just because it makes them laugh would have bought the products with some other type of joke and I don’t imagine the militant atheist market who will buy just because it’s offensive to organised religion is that big to bother with.

When discussing what is acceptable in marketing I usually end up coming around to comparing it to what is acceptable in comedy. I totally understand why people would get offended by the mere inclusion of their religion in marketing or comedy but for some reason I don’t mind risky comedy as much as risky marketing. I have three reasons for this. The first is that I’ve always figured that is easy enough to avoid comedians like Sarah Silverman and Ricky Gervais if you know that they will be saying things you will find offensive but much harder to avoid it if it’s directly in your unsuspecting face when you get on the tube in the morning. The second is that some people may be less bothered by a comic like Sarah Silverman for making jokes around the subject of Judaism as she is Jewish herself but are going to be less forgiving when it’s an outsider, or brand, making the joke. The third is that I think that people are more likely to accept the inclusion of religion in comedy if it is used to highlight some sort of other issue which makes it useful; whereas its inclusion to try and sell you something is not so acceptable.

Now this doesn’t mean that I’m necessarily against the advert in question from a moral perspective. Ultimately though does it matter if you’re personally against it or not? If we know that someone will be upset and the inclusion of it isn’t of any particular benefit should we not just avoid it altogether anyway?