What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • How did I do with last year’s predictions?

    Here’s a run down of how I did at last year’s predictions.

    • Good results for Nigel Farage following the English local elections in May. Terrible results for Conservative Party.

    Exactly what happened. YES

    • No progress towards the marriage of same-sex couples in the Church of England

    Exactly what happened. Indeed, I think things may have gone into reverse. YES

    • Turbulent year for WordPress, which powers about half of the internet.

    The year began with Automattic dramatically cutting its contribution to development leading to stagnation in development and much acrimony. Subsequently restored. Deep divisions remain about Gutenberg. I’m claiming this as a YES.

    • 2025 will be the hottest year on record.

    Final figures yet to be calibrated but all reports indicate that this, unfortunately is a YES.

    • No trade deal for UK with US. Increasing talk of re-aligning economy closer to EU.

    Well, there was a trade deal in May called the Economic Prosperity Deal but it doesn’t seem to much and some of the basics have already been reversed. I suppose I have to be honest and say I didn’t get this quite right so it is a NO. But…

    • Ceasefire in Russia-Ukraine war but no long term solution.

    Hard to assess this one. No long term solution, certainly. There have been a series of ceasefires proposed but none seems really to have been fully implemented. Partial YES.

    • “Assisted Dying” aka doctor assisted suicide becomes legal in at least one of the jurisdictions of the British Isles.

    I have to put this down as a  NO  as it completed its parliamentary journey in the Isle of Man but hasn’t received Royal Assent yet, so not technically legal.

    • Turbulent year for economy but stock market higher at end of year than beginning. (FTSE currently at 8,173)

    Stock market at 9,931 today and there was quite a lot of volatility in the first part of the year. So this one is a YES.

    • There will be fewer Commonwealth Realms (ie countries which share the monarchy) by the end of 2025 than there are now.

    This one is a NO though there has been significant progress in that direction in Jamaica and moves that way in Grenada.

    • Philip Mountstephen.

    Well, I was pushing Philip Mounstephen’s name as he appeared to be the only senior bishop in the C of E who actually believed the [absurd] position of the C of E bishops on same-sex relationships. But it is a NO – nothing significant to report.

     

    So – five and a half out of ten this year. Not as good as some years. A couple of near misses.

     

    ,

10 responses to “Advertise, advertise, advertise!”

  1. Matt Hanson Avatar
    Matt Hanson

    Good writing. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed my Google News Reader..

    Matt Hanson

    Reply
  2. Eamonn Avatar
    Eamonn

    How naff can you get? It was worth listening to a professional advertiser’s comments on the Lichfield advert on the Sunday programme on Radio 4.

    Reply
  3. Gavin Drake Avatar
    Gavin Drake

    Adverts that make people in the church feel comfortable are likely to be completely irrelevant to people outside the church. As the instigator and creator of the Lichfield football adverts campaign I stand by them – they did what we wanted them to do. We had a target and we achieved that target. The professional advertising chap on Radio Four was anti the adverts; but he was also anti the entire Christian message as a self-proclaimed militant atheist. His best effort? “Life” – which is a campaign he created for the Billy Graham missions 20 years ago. Hardly creative (now, 20 years on) nor fresh. His message was that the church should get rid of Jesus, God and all the “after life” stuff and concentrate on making people feel good now.

    One final thought, in this blog entry aren’t you demonstrating the Christian Christmas grumpetyness which you appear to be criticising in others?

    Reply
  4. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Thanks for your comments Gavin.

    You are quite right about my grumpityness though I was not particularly being critical of it in others. Indeed, being able to rely on other people’s grumpityness is one of the things which has ensured a lot of exposure for the CAN ads, for example, the Bad Hair Day campaign and the Meek, Mild As If one. It was the (mock?) outrage of the christian community that got those ads talked about.

    I’m a fan of what the CAN do, which I perhaps did not make clear in the above blog entry.

    I’d be interested to know what the target was and how achieving it was measured.

    I have to confess to feeling embarrassed by the Lichfield ad but then of course, it was not aimed at me.

    I also commented about past CAN campaigns here and here.

    Reply
  5. Kennedy Avatar
    Kennedy

    Having listened to the CAN adverts, I am left asking what the message was and who was the target audience? If the intention was to familiarise the audience with the characters and motifs from the Christmas story then OK, but there is more that could be said in the time.

    You’ll permit me a small plug for the stuff that GRF produce.

    Have a listen:

    http://smallvoice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/01-ms-christianity.mp3

    Yes, this uses the style of the M&S ads but I think that it communicates something about the Christian message and in a form that a non-church person could relate to.

    The judges at the Jerusalem Awards seemed to like it as they awarded it the premier award in the ‘Shorts’ category at their awards ceremony last week.

    If you are looking for creative audio to use in churches or schools then have a look at http://www.audiopot.org.

    Kennedy

    Reply
  6. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Thanks Kennedy. I like the M and S Ad. Very clever. I always like hearing Albatross (the music underneath) because it reminds me of someone I knew a long time ago who used to play it (on large pipe organs) during communion.

    One of the drawbacks of the ads that I was speaking about above is that they all depend on knowing the Christian story. That is perhaps legitimate in a Back to Church Sunday as it is presumably aimed at folk who have gone away knowing something or other.

    The line about the penalty does kind of imply that substitutionary atonement is what we believe though.

    The Lichfield ad certainly got a lot of coverage and if that was the intention, it succeeded.

    Reply
  7. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    I must admit I found the racing advert amusing. The football ones leave me cold. Aside from issue about inclusivity and dubious theology, I think living in Glasgow has made me very wary of any connection between religion and football.

    Reply
  8. Coxy Avatar
    Coxy

    I think that the football one is excellent, as does my wife (and she can’t tell the difference between Liverpool and Arsenal – I guess they do both play in red though!). How is it not inclusive of men and women? As I see it there is good build up play from Mary and Joseph before Jesus scores…

    Reply
  9. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Hi Nick

    I’ve just rescued your comment from a spam filter – don’t know why it got swallowed.

    At St Mary’s we tend to avoid language like “men” where what is really meant is men and women, “mankind” when what is meant really is humanity etc

    This affects things like the language we use for hymns.

    We’d never sing, “Brothers, this Lord Jesus, shall return again” for example. In a mixed crowd it just seems rude.

    There is an ongoing degate about how far to go with this policy but by and large, language inclusive of men and women is the norm at St Mary’s and exclusive language tends to jar and be distractive when you’ve got used to more inclusive language in church. Thus the ad is something we couldn’t use because of the use of the word “man” meaning something other than just men.

    Reply
  10. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    The term “banter”, as featured in the ad, should also be used by no-one anyway (and only partly because of Chewing the Fat). O the amount of people that have endured abuse and had it expained away as “just banter”.

    Wondering if “male” ads like this are ok if one also does female-centered advertising, or if the whole idea is hoary sexism. St.Silas does a Women 4 Women thing which I believe is popular. No Men 4 Men though.

    Hope I’m immune from the st.silasite ensnaring spam filter
    ;-).

    Reply

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