One of the best e-things we saw last year was If Historical Events had Facebook Statuses. And TBWA\ has taken a leaf out a similar book and embraced social media for St Matthew in the City’s ‘traditional’ Easter billboard.
Browsing: St Matthew in the city
The orange guy has been trying to get apathetic Kiwis to enrol to vote for a while now, as has comedian Guy Williams on TV3.co.nz’s homepage. And now controversial Auckland church St Matthew in the City and TBWA\ have invoked the spirit of Kate Sheppard to try and get the modern folk to embrace the joys of democracy next weekend with a billboard that says: ‘Vote: there was a time when you couldn’t’. It’s almost the opposite of St Matthew of the Ridge’s billboard for Car Fe.
Rugby’s pretty close to being a religion in New Zealand. And the outwardly progressive, typically controversial St Matthew in the City and its agency TBWA\ have referenced that with its latest billboard, which uses the ‘Turin Shroud’ style of iconography and endorses David Kirk as a Kiwi deity due to his team’s heroic efforts in 1987.
You can rely on the rather liberal St Matthew in the City church in Auckland to ruffle the feathers of the puritans and zealots with its ‘progressive’ billboards. And, as history has shown, you can also rely on Hell Pizza to stoke a few offensive coals with its advertising. Well, this Easter, the two of them have become surprising bedfellows.
Churches, by nature, are fairly conservative beasts. Understandably, they’re trying valiantly to cling to the power they once held before many modern folk decided a big breakfast at the local cafe was a better way to spend a Sunday morning. As a result, they’re not regarded as the biggest embracers of change or difference, which makes the unashamedly progressive and inclusive Anglican church St Matthew in the City in Auckland such an interesting–and polarising—case. The church has well and truly bucked the conservative old school trend and established a reputation for controversial, attention grabbing marketing ploys that aim get people of all shapes, sizes, persuasions and beliefs interested in the offerings of the big man. The zealots certainly don’t seem to like what they generally deem to be blasphemy (the media does, however) and St Matthew in the City’s latest effort, a blessed billboard made with the help of TBWA\, certainly fits the brief.
Progressive Auckland church St Matthew-in-the-city has put up its Easter/April Fools billboard, and this one, which features Jesus on the cross saying “Well this sucks. I wonder if they’ll remember anything I said,” appears to be much more palatable to fun-hating prudes and religious zealots than the last innuendo-filled Christmas number.
Whatever the atheists can do, the ecclesiastics can do better. Auckland’s St Matthew in the City, a church that has made quite a name for itself as a result of its provocative billboards, has ruffled feathers again, this time with a rather risqué yuletide number that lampoons the literalism of the omnipotent lovin’ supposedly dished out to Mary by the cosmically virile Yaweh.