I'd Buy That

Anyone who's watched the Super Bowl -- and who hasn't? -- knows the power of advertising. People, millions of them, look forward to the commercials as much as the football game itself. If the ad succeeds, they win big. If they fail, well, they still get talked about.

It isn't that way with every PR campaign.

In his sermon today, our pastor threw out some ad slogans to see if we recognized them. The ones we didn't had been "failures" for brands that still do well for themselves (KFC and Coke). But I felt the power of advertising when I heard "Where's the beef?" and without hesitation knew, 25 years after that campaign had ended, that it was for Wendy's.

The question for us in the congregation was how are we promoting, marketing and carrying God's message? His story? Based on my "campaign," would a person recognize me as a Christian now and, hopefully, 25 years from now?

It gave us plenty to think about, that's for sure. And, not surprisingly, the subject came up again later.

This afternoon, because it was a relatively warm and sunny day, Carter and I decided to go on another can-collecting mission. There were some ditches on my run yesterday that I noticed had cans littered in them.

So we walked in the sunshine, picking up a few soda cans but mainly beer cans. Cheap beer and old school beer. I knew some people still drank Pabst Blue Ribbon, but Hamm's? I did not even know they still made that!

I picked up the can and naturally couldn't help but start to sing the old theme song from the commercials. C'mon, you know it, too... From the land of sky-blue waters...

Well I got a big eye roll from Carter. "Mom, how could you still know that?" I tried to explain that I was probably his age or younger when the commercials were on, but they had a cartoon bear and, as a kid, you really weren't thinking it was a beer commercial. Just more of a, well, bear commercial.

We really can't deny the power of advertising, can we?

The question we need to ask ourselves, though, is are we sending the right message?