CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting here Nov. 14-16, endorsed a new emblem and a theme line, "Living Faith," that will be featured in a coordinated identity program. Over the next 12 months the church will design a marketing and identity campaign, executed by Periscope Advistising Communication, Minneapolis.
The Rev. Eric C. Shafer, director of the Department for Communication told the council, "By this time next year ... the program will have gone public." He projected, "A full scale roll-out of the national and regional media campaign will begin in the fall of 1998."
Three years of research went into preparation for the campaign, Shafer reported. The process included a marketing consultation, reflection on theology and marketing, a baseline study of U.S. Christians and their attitude toward the ELCA, and follow-up focus groups.
Staff "began work to launch a coordinated marketing and identity program for this church," Shafer said. "The group identified the need for national and regional media campaign combined with materials for use in local congregations and groups of congregations, as well as a unifying visual image," he said. The program will take into account the study of generations, understanding that popular culture, economic conditions, world events, natural disasters, heroes, villains, politics and technology all have bearing on the ways different age groups respond to messages and make decisions.
Most of the current leadership of the ELCA are "matures," according to Emily Child of Periscope, people who strongest impressions are of the Great Depression or World War II. Child told the council that baby boomers with families value individuality and have "a nostalgic yearning to offer traditional values in raising children." Generation X, she said, values diversity and seeks "connection amidst diversity, community-based peer groups which offer support."
The overall program will invlove ELCA congregations and synods, Shafer said. Funding for much of the work is still pending, he said. To date it has come from the Department for Communication, the Division for Congregational Ministry, grants from Aid Association for Lutherans and the ELCA's Expanded Ministry Fund.
With the council's endorsement, the campaign plan and prototypes of identity program materials were shared with the churchwide staff Nov. 17 and with the ELCA's evangelism and communicators networks meeting in Pittsburgh Nov. 20-21.
[Editors: a slick of the new ELCA emblem will be
sent to you in a press kit at a later date. It
will also be made available on the church's web
page at: ELCA.ORG.]
For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or
NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html
- - -
About the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America:
The ELCA is one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States, with 2.8 million members in more than 8,500 worshiping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. Known as the church of "God's work. Our hands.," the ELCA emphasizes the saving grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unity among Christians and service in the world. The ELCA's roots are in the writings of the German church reformer Martin Luther.
For information contact:
Candice Hill Buchbinder
Public Relations Manager
Candice.HillBuchbinder@ELCA.org
