wfn.org | ELCA Undertakes Identity Campaign

[Brenda Williams <BRENDAW@elca.org>]

Reply-To: ElcaNews <ELCANEWS@ELCASCO.ELCA.ORG>

ELCA NEWS SERVICE

November 24, 1997

LIVING FAITH: ELCA UNDERTAKES IDENTITY CAMPAIGN
97-34-100-AH

     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