Mormon Ads
For many years, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church, have sponsored advertising campaigns for various reasons. Several decades ago, the Church place multi-page ads in Readers' Digest Magazine explaining the basics of the gospel and inviting people to meet with Mormon missionaries. An interesting result of these ads was the exposure of a number of people in Africa to the basic tenets of the gospel. In one area, a group began meeting together in anticipation that the Church would eventually establish a formal presence there, which it eventually did.
Later, the Mormon Church sponsored television ads. Such ads were meant to enhance family life and were not aimed at drawing converts. These were messages for husbands, wives and parents.
In 2010 The Mormon Church began making short videos about everyday Mormons in an effort to show who Mormons are and what they are like. This campaign was a response to studies which showed that most people have erroneous ideas about who the Mormons are. Some think Mormons are like the Amish, which is untrue, and some equate members of the Mormon Church with fundamentalist polygamist groups, also a false notion.
When the Book of Mormon Musical launched in New York City and began garnering awards with its irreverent, even obscene, satire of religion in general and Mormonism specifically, the Church decided to add New York to its list of nine original American pilot cities (Baton Rouge, Colorado Springs, Jacksonville, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, Rochester, St. Louis and Tucson) where the ads would be shown. But when the Mormon Church chose New York, the launch was huge, with giant displays in Time Square and in taxis around the city. The ads refer people to the mormon.org website, where they can read the profiles of more than 30,000 Mormons, chat live with representatives who will answer questions about the faith, and watch dozens of videos giving a glimpse into the lives of Latter-day Saints from all over the world. [1]
The diversity of Mormons is reflected in New York City, where Church membership has grown rapidly in the last decade. Since 2000, membership has increased by 75% to 78,000 members in New York state. The common thread that ties the diverse membership together is their desire to follow Jesus Christ. Because of these ads in New York City, the missionaries in the area have been getting calls from local hotels like the Ritz Carlton and the Marriott because people keep taking copies of the Book of Mormon as souvenirs and they need replacement copies.
