Not the church I grew up in...short-short video by Bonneville
Communications aka KSL aka LDS


watch the video (over a minute) before you click on the second link

http://www.studychristianity.com/index.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eZB8ycd4tQ





Quote
KSL's Bonneville communications:
Our unique strength is the ability to touch the hearts and minds of our audiences, evoking first feeling, then thought and, finally, action. We call this uniquely powerful brand of creative "Heart Sell"® - strategic emotional advertising that stimulates response.

From what I've read marketing research shows that Mormons need to sell themselves using terms and language that potential converts are already familiar with. This is in direct conflict with the conventional Mormon thinking that what makes them unique are their top selling points like the Book of Mormon and being led by a living prophet.

Looks like some group of Mormons is getting on board with this notion before the COB.

The fastest growing religious demographic is "none of the above" which has doubled to ca. 16% in the last 18 yrs. (if I remember correctly). Mormonism would be wise to team up with other denominations and work out a marketing plan with an ecumenical message along with an agreement to share the spoils.

Look at us We are mainstream Christians...

more like they just brought out Jesus from storage and dusted him off for better exposure. This is not the church I knew!

Anyone else find this as outrageous as me?

Yep, using Madison Avenue techniques to rope potential suckers, er converts, into "The Gospel" of "Give me yer money, honey! in exchange for an elaborate batch of empty promises...."

That was the mantra when I was growing up.

Or this recent exchange from 2009:

Well dad, you're a christian, right?
No, we're mormons- there's a difference!
Well, the leaders say all the time nowadays that we're christians?
Yeah, well, you know...

I took that to mean that my dad knew as well as anyone that it was just a public relations stunt.


So any time the church whips out its "We're Christians too" tomfoolery, I just rely on the words of my TBM parents who know from decades of church attendance.

Back when this was made, Bonneville Communications wasn't part of KSL. KSL TV is owned by Bonneville International which also owned Bonneville Communications at the time. Once Bonneville Communications' business dried up (no one wanted to purcahse their services or 'heartsale' anymore except the church, it was slowly disolved into nothing but a few records in file cabinets and an empty hull on the 3rd floor of the Triad center where they once were 20 full time employees. Now, KSL does everything that Bonneville Communications was doing so you're accurate for the moment, but not when that was produced, it was closer to the church's control than it is now.