Catholics Come Home just announced they’ll be airing their most popular video “commercial” for the Catholic Church on a national, prime-time scale from Dec 16, 2011 through January 8, 2012. It will show on “CBS, NBC, Univision, TBS, USA, TNT, CNN, FoxNews, and other networks during shows like 60 Minutes, NCIS, Kennedy Center Honors, NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, Jay Leno, O’Reilly, major sports, and highly rated sitcoms.”
They report that the “positive message will reach 250 million television viewers in over 10,000 U.S. cities and every diocese throughout the United States, airing over 400 times during the three-week period spanning before Christmas through the Feast of the Epiphany, January 8, 2012.
[...]Where these ads have aired, Mass attendance has increased an average of 10%, and helped over 300,000 people home to the Church, just since 2008.”
Here’s the brilliant ad (below), in case you’re one of the few who haven’t seen it yet. The commercial has been shortened from its original form due to the time constraints and costs of TV ads, no doubt. The original, full-length version is much better, but this one is still very good:
I’m pretty stoked about this. However, a recent study by CARA showed that the successes claimed to have been made (increased Mass attendance, etc.) by showing this commercial within specific dioceses in the past may not be as significant as estimated. The CARA study makes the case that the airing of the commercial had
no significant
lasting effect, and perhaps even very little short-term effect in regard to activating inactive Catholics. Check out their report for the interesting analysis and why the cited increase in Mass attendance may not have been because of the ads at all.
If true, this then begs the question, is it worth spending all this money on national TV campaigns for the Catholic Church?
I’d say, regardless of the study, Yes. Here are a few thoughts why:
1) Anyone in marketing knows that while immediate, direct and quantifiable results for advertising campaigns are nice, that’s not often how it works. It’s very common that the effects of a campaign are more indirect and difficult to measure. I think that’s going to be the case with ad spots like this. It does have a specific call to action (come home to your parish, visit our website), but I don’t think we should expect that’s all it’s going to take for most people.
2) An ad like this is only one part of the solution. So it’s incomplete to measure it all by itself. For instance, at least one other part of the solution should be a campaign of active Catholics reaching out to inactive Catholics personally, inviting them back to Mass or other activities at the parish. That would surely yield positive results, and anyone that has seen the commercial would likely be more receptive to such a personal invitation after seeing it.
3) We also have to examine what we’re inviting Catholics to come home to? Let’s say somebody does check out their local parish after seeing this compelling and beautiful commercial. What will they find? Are they finding a thriving, welcoming community rooted in the sacraments? Do they encounter a beautiful and respectful liturgy worthy of those sacraments? Are they finding answers to their questions? Solutions to their problems?
4) Actually, let’s back it up a bit more. What is the first thing a person would do who sees the commercial and then decides they need to get to Mass? They are gonna do just what you or I would do—go straight to the Internet and find the website of their local parish. But what will they find there? Does their local parish website (if it even exists and can be found) easily give them the information they need? Does it make a good first impression? Does the experience of the website impress them by matching the promise and beauty of the commercial they just saw? Or does it remind them of why they stopped going to Mass in the first place?
5) I’d be interested in the uptick in Google searches for “Catholic Mass times” or “Catholic parish [city name]” after this ad campaign runs. That would be a much better metric for an ad campaign like this. The analysis of the traffic to the CatholicsComeHome.org website as a result of the campaign would also be helpful, of course.
6) Commercials like this, I think, may actually end up being more effective online than in massive traditional media campaigns—mostly because online they are easy to share in a more personal way. And so they become a handy evangelization tool that empowers Catholics to go out and share their faith, make personal connections with people, start conversations, get feedback from viewers, answer questions, etc. Which are important next steps to bringing people back to the Church for good and to initiating lasting conversion. That’s why I was surprised a couple years ago when Catholics Come Home had just launched these amazing commercials, and they weren’t letting anyone embed them and share them online (without first sending people back to their website). That has since changed—which was most certainly the right thing to do.
7) This kind of commercial, in my opinion, is more like a Nike ad, rather than a local car dealership ad. Nike ads are generally for “branding” purposes. They’re purpose is not to send you running to your closest Nike retailer. It’s to affect what you think of and how you feel when you see the Nike logo or hear their name. Their purpose is branding, not a specific call to action. Yes, the Catholics Come Home commercial has a call to action (come on home to your parish), but I think the call to action serves more of a purpose of “branding” the Church as a welcoming place. It reminds people that the Church—and Jesus—is always close by, waiting for you to come back. It reminds viewers of what the Church has contributed to humankind and all of the good she does (something you won’t hear from most media, especially in light of the sex abuse crisis). It may not compel a person to run back into the pews, but it at least reminds them how amazing our Church is and will help people think of her in a more positive light when they hear her name. Metrics like that are harder to capture and quantify. But they are still real and important.
8) Forget the stats for a minute. When you watch this commercial, don’t you just want everyone to see it? I do. Deep down, you just know that it is doing something good for people.
What do you think? Are these kinds of ad campaigns worth it even if we don’t see a direct increase in Mass attendance because of them? Why do you support or not support these kinds of efforts?
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Excellent analysis, Matthew. Love the analogy to a Nike campaign. Also, #4 got me thinking: I’d love to see a campaign like this coupled with some sort of fund to help parishes that want to upgrade their websites. Easier said than done, of course, but something like that would be wonderful.
Thanks for a great post!
When a Catholics Come Home program was implemented in my archdiocese last year, the commercials were only part of it. For example, each parish was encouraged to create its own “Catholics Come Home” team, to make sure that their parish was a welcoming place for new or returning Catholics. Workshops were given at which parish secretaries, pastors, and other “first contact” people were taught how to help people who want to return to the Church. People from different parishes across the archdiocese shared ideas for how to evangelize and welcome new members to their parish. I hope that parishes and dioceses around the country are doing something similar this year in preparation for the national campaign.
It’s better than nothing, and it is an excellent ad, although I like the one about the life review after death better.
Ex Catholics will have much to answer for - forsaking the Eucharist for fellowship, golf, the Sunday Paper, or whatever. And it isn’t that hard to pick up the phone to find out when Sunday Mass is, or even to drive by the parish and read the sign outside. So let’s all hope and pray that they ALL come back.
The Church of today is not the church of the 1970s with folk music and banners and kumbaya. The JPII priests are starting to take over, and there is a huge change of spirituality from the boomer priests, thank God….
I have a bit of direct knowledge about CCH. First of all, I interviewed Tom Peterson briefly for my book on parish-based evangelization and he put it very directly: The goal of CCH is to get people back in touch with a local parish. After that it is up to the parish. This is very similar to Christ Renews His Parish, a retreat process through which over a million Catholics have gone through. The follow-up is the parish.
Tom Peterson also said that the impact of the ads seems largest among the Hispanic population and less effective in plains dioceses.
I’ve been part of pre-campaign formation for an archdiocese and present at a diocesan “pre-campaign” gathering of leaders in another diocese which did almost no prep at all.
The number who went through pre-campaign formation was small but everything seemed to be going well and they were very engaged. When we came to the end and asked them to discuss the obvious question: “Let’s say that 100 people return to your parish because of CCH. If your goal is that all 100 be active, fully initiated, Catholic disciples two years from now, what should you do?” They froze. One parish spent all their time talking about the wonderful things they were already doing. One group finally came up with the only concrete suggestion: Put up a banner in the vestibule saying “Welcome Home”. Only one group actually wrestled with the topic because they were led by a deacon who really got it.
A year later, the count in that archdiocese was exactly the same as before the CCH campaign. Like you, I like the adds and do think they have a real impact on people. I’m intrigued by the idea that they serve as a kind of positive “branding”.
But our real dilemma is that almost none of our parishes have the vision, the leadership, the structures or the culture to recognize, deliberately reach out to and effective support personally, spiritually, catechetically those who return home.
At the parish and diocesan level, the working assumption is usually that returnees will just step right back into the stream of Catholic practice and habits without missing a beat. But for most, it just doesn’t happen that way anymore.
Great job Matthew. I would point out however that CARA did not conduct a “study” of the effects of the campaign rather, as they didn’t have access to original data sets used by the various diocese. Rather Dr. Gray brought up valid questions about the reported numbers compared to national data. I hope that CARA and CCH will team up to conduct an accurate study of the data that Diocese collected in the future. Perhaps I am biased, but here in Phoenix where we piloted the campaign in 2008 we are continuing to see the positive effects for both the people that returned and the active Catholics who were inspired to evangelize during the campaign.
I definitely think they are worth it and I am excited that the Church will at least be recognized in the media in such a public positive way. I think it’s beautiful!
If it even brings back ONE, LONE CATHOLIC, it was worth it.
The sad fact is that many parishes are not all that welcoming Catholicism is a full lifestyle not a part time club many need to figure that out still. A wise old Irish Priest once told me “We need to get our own house in order first” good words to contimplate. God Bless
I think #7 is the key. Catholics and LDS Mormons are getting hit really hard with sucker punches from secular society these days. it’s important to show us as normal people (like the I’m a Mormon ads do) ... something we can do to avoid the “religious nuts/ crazies” label we’ve been getting. in that regard… I think they should balance the Ash Wednesday visuals with Catholic people doing normal things. Those symbols that secular people don’t understand, tend to scare them. But then again… this is for Catholics, not the secular world.
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And yes, #8 - i do just want people to see it. It’s beautiful and warms my heart…
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but the proof will be in the parishes… and I keep saying this over and over in the NCR com boxes - hopefully someone in the church ministry will listen… parishes NEED TO REACH OUT TO SINGLE ADULTS! I swear, there are more of us than their are of married couples - but none of them (especially single adult men) are at church. Why? Because if they are divorced they certainly feel that they’re not welcome and more so that they are being judged. If they haven’t been following the commandments… they really don’t feel welcome.
And if they’ve been single their entire entire adult lives…. they know the church isn’t talking to them anyway!
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If you want to make a difference… the church websites need to have information about Adult Fellowship… and adult activities. I’ve been begging for this stuff at my church… and the result is single adults get the cold shoulder. Even when we go greet our priest after Mass…he gives us the minimum greeting and turns to the married couples/ families for conversations. Maybe it’s because they have kids in the parish school…. and there are no dollar signs on a 40 year old single woman… it’s not like I’m going be popping out kids and paying school tuition any time soon!!
If you really want to reach out to people…. identify the needs of single adults and strive to meet them.
Otherwise stop telling us we should meet our future husbands at church when you know dang well they are not there.
Anne - thanks for the info! I, too, hope parishes will be prepared for the influx of new faces! They should be prepared either way, regardless of the Catholics Come Home campaign, especially during Christmas and Easter as Mass attendance more than doubles during that time every year anyway!
Sherry - what is your book?
Ryan - Thanks for the clarification. I was using the term “study” more broadly, of course, in that they took an in depth look at the existing data. I hope they’re teaming up for more studies, too! We certainly need much more of it!
TRS - You are certainly right. They also need to reach out and be more welcoming to young families, which is another demographic that is underrepresented at Mass. You tend to notice the few that ARE there because their kids usually attract attention. But being such a family ourselves, I notice much more how many are NOT there bc of the challenges it is to attend Mass with small kids!
I do like the ad but I must agree with you on the fact that an ad alone will not be enough.
Those of us that are true to the faith must start speaking up about our faith, it wont be easy but I do believe that it must start with the lay people and take it from there, yes there will be times of discouragement and maybe we might be laughed at but at the end of they day what we have to remember we are trying to save souls that is our ultimate goal, when you think of christian’s being thrown to the lions during roman times being laughed at seems rather trivial don’t you think.
We didn’t get into this problem over night
and we will not get out of it overnight
all we can do is stay strong in the faith and just keep trying
Yes, it’s worth it. See Luke 15. “There will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
From a career marketing executive, I think your piece was very thoughtful and on point. Well done.
The first question should be why the person left in the first place. If they’re coming home but the reason why they left still exists, the person will just leave again or not bother.
To Iroy: Most people leave the Church because of laziness: they will come up with their “reasons”, but most (not all) will be valid. My aunt left the Church because she had a pastor that was shoving the homosexual agenda down their throats (no longer pastor, but still confused) & her belief was that this was the official teachings of the church. It IS OUR JOB to get our brothers & sisters back into His church, not an easy task, so I hope that this campaign will work. Thanks again Matt for another great job. +JMJ+
Yes, I think it is well worth it and pray that is brings my family back to the fold that I pray every day for that to happen.
Thank you for quoting CARA’s analysis. As Landings leader for 8 years, I am very skeptical of the stats quoted by CCH. Any Faith formation director knows that you do not compare October attendance to Lent attendance..not apples to apples. In fact, the CARA study points out that a year later, the parishes are back where they started - but the dioceses are millions of dollars poorer.
It is critical for the parishes to have some kind of welcoming/formation program in place for returning Catholics to tell their stories and ask their questions, with others on the same journey. Inactive Catholics respond to the invitation of the ads, but need to be welcomed back with open arms as they re-enter the community, or we will lose them again.
It is a SHAME that the US Church was not given no more than six weeks notice of CCH’s intentions. Why not wait - and spend the money in Advent 2012 - the Year of Faith - when parishes can get their welcome teams together and start small group formation ministries like Landings to greet folks that respond to the ads…
Landings, a twenty year proven program of the Paulists, is relaunching with new materials and training videos in Fall 2012. It would have been wonderful for CCH to have given some serious thought to the next steps for our returning Catholics..
May want to check out my book as well for help with parish-based outreach to returning Catholics..
“When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics” (23rd Publications) also available on Amazon
Also see book “When they come home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics” (23rd Publications) for ways parishes can prepare an effective outreach to inactive/returning Catholics…
This is step one - yes, as you so aptly pointed out, this is classic generic, branding marketing - and that usually takes many views to get the message across. If I saw this ad on TV, though - I would go hunting the internet to see it again. I have seen it countless times, and still, am moved to tears with each viewing. Let’s celebrate this accomplishment - so many Archdioceses are just not able to raise the funds to accomplish a huge media campaign - this is a wondrous and holy start and let’s jump on this bandwagon - it is that for which we have been praying!! Our fallen away Catholic brothers and sisters may just decide to come home…and if only a few remain, it’s a start! And how long does it take to put together a welcoming committee and some literature detailing more opportunities to return to communion with the Church!!?
Hopefully, the value of the spot ads is that it will give the “faithful” more courage to invite those not currently worshiping with a parish community. The combination that needs to exist is extending an invitation, a welcoming environment,and then, allowing the Spirit to evangelize!
RE: 4) Actually, let’s back it up a bit more, what is the first thing a person would do who sees the commercial and then decides they need to get to Mass? They are gonna do just what you or I would do - go straight to the internet and find the website of their local parish. But what will they find there?
Answer: A list of Catholic churches their location and their web address.
Mr. Warner is a bit too pessimistic. There are not too many Catholic churches that don’t have their own website and even if they don’t their diocesan websites have a listing of all the parishes in their diocese and they are all set up to couple with one of the map search engines.
As a volunteer worker for Masstimes.org the original church search engine let me give you some data from their annual report:
Celebrating seventeen years of serving the Church and ten million
website visitors a year, Mass Times promotes Mass attendance,
Eucharistic Adoration, Confession and devotions.
The parish information is provided free to travelers, parishes, dioceses and other
Catholic organizations, members of the OCCD (On-Line Catholic Church Directory).
Mass Times receives over thirty million church lookups a year using the Internet by ten
million visitors and twenty thousand church info inquiries via the telephone system.
An Internet update option is available for the parish and diocesan revision of church
information. Volunteers and supporters share in the ministry and collaborate in many
ways that make Mass Times what it is today.
Mass Times also offers a number of other features such as:
• A bi-lingual live telephone operator is available for a few hours each week.
• Free ads to religious organizations for vocations and evangelization efforts.
• “Adopt a Parish” blog for helping parishes/dioceses get on the Internet.
• Cell phone, iPhones and hand held devices using text access are available.
• Quarterly Newsletters to parishes, supporters, volunteers and religious leaders.
• Diocesan Reports emailed to 2,000+ Arch/Diocese around the globe.
• Free access to Mass Times church data to anyone who uses it to share with
travelers.
Promotion of the website is accomplished by diocesan news releases, attending
USCCB Bishops meeting and catholic conferences, such as; Major Superiors-
Leadership and Lay Leadership Conferences, and by sending quarterly reports to all the
bishops asking their support to promote Mass Times in their parishes.
Finally if you think the average internet user will have trouble finding a Catholic Church try going to Google Maps and type in
Catholic Church (your zipcode) and see what you get. A map with pushpins and a list of local churches with links to their websites
Lou - you missed my point. Even if most parishes have a website, many if not most of them are not very good representations of the Church nor the parish. They are out of date, badly designed, hard to use, etc. The point is not that people won’t be able to find a parish to visit if they really want to, it’s whether or not they’ll be inspired to visit a parish who doesn’t take pride in how they present themselves in the first place. And that includes, near the top of the list, what their website looks like…as the website is very often the place that first impression is made on an inactive Catholic considering “coming home.”
So if somebody gets inspired by the commercial, the inspiration may not last long once they hit their parish’s website. That’s all. Not trying to be pessimistic. Just realistic about the fact that the commercial may work very well at getting people to consider going back to Mass. But there are some other intermediate steps between that moment and them walking through the doors of the Church. And those are important to consider, too.
Thanks for your support of MassTime.org, it’s a great resource and database of a lot of great info!
Personally I started doing church websites 12 years ago and at one point I was managing 38 parish websites. The technology and availability of material and ease of implementation has come a long way. Tody I only manage my local parish website www.visitationchurch.com. I spend at least 20 hours a week keeping it fresh and up to date (take a look). I can do that because there is so much material out there that I cxan round up and put in one place for my parishioners. I normally have 6 or more embedded videos on my front page and a selection of articles and columns from other sources. My goal is to give them a buffet of what is available out there and the links to explore them more deeply themselves.
There are many Catholic media sites out there and they get better and better each week. Some of them are even going to full time scheduling of shows and I can just include permanent links or feeds on my website.seewww.telecaretv.org - saltandlighttv.org - www.CatholicTV.com
I agree that in the end the average parish is probably limited to what the individual webmaster can handle but there are tons of resources available and with the selection of several good links prominently displayed a whole new world awaits the seeker of Catholic information on the web.
I suspect that the real impact of the Catholics Come Home project will be on the involved Catholics in the country who will see the material that they need to pass on to family members and friends who make up the 80% of Catholics who have drifted off. From my vantage point the effort is worth every penny and I expect to take full advantage of it.
Matthew: I’m in the final throes of writing my book for Our Sunday Visitor right now and it is supposed to come out in June. On everything we’ve learned about effective parish-based evangelization over the course of our travels to 105 diocese, working with thousands of pastoral leaders at all levels, and listening to the real stories of tens of thousands of Catholics’ relationship with God.
These ads are targeted at lapsed Catholics and I fully support them. However, I’m concerned about their message to the greater non-Catholic population. They portray us as having a retention problem. Perhaps inviting everyone to discover or rediscover the Catholic faith would have been a more encompassing approach.
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