Easter Advertising Campaign

Easter Advertising Campaign

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We have hot cross buns because:
a) After Jesus died they burnt the cross
b) Hot Jesus buns were too hard to decorate
c) Bread rises and so did Jesus.

This is an example of the inventive multi-choice questions that feature on billboards and bus shelter posters around Wellington during March and April.

The advertisements are part of a pilot campaign developed by the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, in association with advertising students at Massey University, to invite a wider range of people to reflect on the meaning of Easter.

“It was a really, really good experience,” recalls Kathy Maaka, one of the two students who designed the artwork. “We recognised that there was a lot of prejudice and had to think how to get around it.”

She said one of the barriers people had about going to church was presuming they’d be preached at and told the answers. The campaign’s multi-choice presentation invites people to explore their own answers.

Massey University Design lecturer Euan Robertson said the chance to undertake the creative work for the campaign was too good an opportunity to turn down. It provided a real challenge and the value of students working to a real brief with a deadline.

The third-year design students involved had been discussing social responsibility and the need to challenge stereotypes. “This assignment was particularly appropriate because most of the students had fairly fixed views on the church and Christianity,” Euan explains. “The campaign is about getting people beyond thinking in stereotypes and presuppositions.”

As well as carefully selected billboards and bus shelters, the campaign features signs outside many Wellington churches as well as suburban leaflet drops. A Creative Easter Worship workshop has been held for ministers, enabling them to share ideas and ensure that Easter presentations are lively and varied.

ENDS

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