www.abc.net.au/rn/spiritofthings/stories/2009/2686587.h -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 9/20/2009
Last Visited: 10/6/2009
Daniel Willis of the Bible Society NSW, and Sharon Williams of Taurus Marketing, are co-ordinating a media blitz that aims to revive Jesus' popularity with the public.
...
Daniel Willis of the Bible Society NSW, and Sharon Williams of Taurus Marketing, are co-ordinating a media blitz that aims to revive Jesus' popularity with the public.
...
The Bible Society has launched the Jesus, All About Life campaign, and to talk about it are the Society's CEO, Daniel Willis and Sharon Williams of Taurus Marketing who's on the line from Cairns.
...
Sharon Williams: Oh Rachael, you're so right.
...
Sharon Williams: The reaction was fascinating.
...
Sharon Williams: Yes, look Rachael, we inherited that campaign so that was put together already by the time we came on board.
...
Sharon Williams: I think my experience as a corporate girl - I'm a international corporate marketing PR girl, so I've worked on lots of different continents, and with lots of different corporate situations - was to perhaps offer a corporate strategy to what we were doing here, from a communications point of view, not from a religious Jesus point of view.
...
Sharon Williams: The fact that we are running, if you like, an overall campaign.
If you look at it from a corporate perspective, a campaign from HQ, or from an advisory body.
And then you have 15 different denominations in parallel in the business world with different businesses, and then you have beneath them, a whole series of different - I suppose in the business world we'd call them dealers - of the churches, all answering in to those individual denominations with their own marketing PR plans and their own business plans.
So an awful lot of enthusiasm going on already, and how do we then tie that back to the campaign that we were putting in place?
Rachael Kohn: So what in fact are people seeing actually on the ground of this campaign, Sharon?
...
Sharon Williams: On the ground, the churches, and we spoke to over 1,000 individual churches in taking on this campaign, which gave us huge resources in terms of research and feedback from them.
...
That's Sharon Williams of Taurus Marketing, charged with selling the Jesus, All About Lifecampaign, which is the baby of the Bible Society whose New South Wales CEO is Daniel Willis.
...
Rachael Kohn: Sharon, from your perspective, is it easier to focus your marketing on the more upbeat, perhaps even middle-class image of Jesus?
...
Sharon Williams: No, I don't think so at all, Rachael, and I don't believe that's what this campaign has set out to do.
...
Sharon Williams: I think that I've already seen all sorts of communications start, from the moment we came on board with this campaign only five weeks ago the blogs and the conversations have started, with or without my control, and with or without positive messages or negative messages.
...
This is The Spirit of Things and my other guest is Sharon Williams, founder and CEO of Taurus Marketing.
Later I talk to a media studies academic who's not happy with what she calls Christotainment.
...
Sharon, just finally, do you think you'll be taking on any more religious campaigns in the future?
Sharon Williams: Oh Rachael, I hope so.
...
Sharon Williams: Very much so, hugely so.
...
Sharon Williams: Thank you.
Rachael Kohn: Sharon Williams of Taurus Marketing in Cairns, and Daniel Willis of the New South Wales Bible Society, working together to bring Jesus into the conversation.
...
Sharon Williams