Ad Agency Specializes In Religion

Over the past few years, the agency known as Mullen has created advertising for lightbulbs, luxury cars and apple juice. Now the Wenham, Mass. shop is pitching religion.

“People used to solve their problems by turning to Matthew & John, not Smith & Wesson,” reads one new Mullen ad aimed at converting the Sunday backslider into a church “regular.”

The series of print ads was developed for the Church Ad Project of Minneapolis, the brainchild of an Episcopalian minister who had tired of dull liturgical ads featuring a line drawing of a church and a listing of Sunday services.

The minister, Rev. George Martin, tapped a local agency, Fallon McElligott, to come up with something more creative.

The agency succeeded. In fact, its ads became so successful that Martin’s group became ecumenical, branching out to commission ads that could cover a broad spectrum of religions.

Then, in 1991, the nonprofit Church Ad Project made a conversion of its own, becoming a for-profit small business employing Martin and his wife, Caroline.

As the Martins see it, advertising is simply evangelism in a less pristine form. “We now sell church advertising coast to coast,” Caroline Martin says.

Over the years, the Church Ad Project has worked with a series of agencies. When Mullen recently hired an ad writer from the Twin Cities area, the new man brought the Church Ad Project with him.

To sell its messages, the Church Ad Project does an annual mass mailing to churches: a catalog featuring ads as well as posters and T-shirts based on those ads.

Any church that wants to buy an ad pays the Church Ad Project $30 for each ad it wishes to use.

“What we can’t promise you for $30 is that St. Barnabas down the street isn’t using the same ad,” Martin says.

Once it pays the licensing fee, the church is on its own to buy space for the ad in a local newspaper.

As a privately owned business, the Church Ad Project doesn’t disclose revenues or profits. However, circulation of the catalog has increased. In 1991, catalogs were mailed to 30,000 places of worship. Next year, Martin expects to mail 100,000 copies of a full-color, 32-page catalog with a roster of more than 70 print ads.

An older ad is a picture of Earth as viewed from outer space. The tagline is, “Without God, it’s a vicious circle.” That generic message, notes Martin, is suitable for just about any mainstream Christian or non-Christian religion.

“We sell to synagogues too,” she notes.