Welcome back to the nonprofits folks. Today we are talking about an article coming
to us from Only Sky and it's about the Heat gets Us marketing pain.
So if you're unfamiliar with this, uh, you know what, why am
I even saying that they've spent a billion dollars pushing this stuff out there.
I'm sure our viewers are well aware. You've probably seen the billboard or the
cute little TV commercial or you know the start of the YouTube video where it
just he gets us. You know, he gets us. You know,
Jesus knows what it's like, you know, to not be very wealthy.
He gets us. You know, he knows what it's like to be a
refugee. Heat gets us. In case you can't figure out what the point
of this marketing campaign is, uh, it's about talking about Jesus to as
many people who can possibly hear it in any given time frame. The funny
thing about it is, despite what the founders and people who run this campaign
say there, it really doesn't seem to be any value that it's been adding.
There doesn't seem to be anybody out there who's uh, I don't know,
become more faithful or just like just completely converted to Christianity. So yeah,
that's that's kind of what this article goes to goes in depth about,
and let's open it up. Kelly, what did you think about this article?
Well, first, I wasn't expecting to read a short novella this week,
but it was an interesting one. I'll give it that. It was
the first thing that hit me. And I remember what the source was a
really biased article. Um it's we're going to be biased in our cupboard.
So I don't even know why that's the thing, but um, but to
me, yeah, it just seemed like this big giant advertising campaign, one
that not only tries to convince non Christians that Christians are people just like you
and Jesus was just like you, and you really should join us, but
at the same time it looked like it was also trained convinced current Christians to
go out and spread the same message a little bit more. Hey, you
got to go out and to convince people Jesus is just like us, you
know so. But but as you're as you were saying, it doesn't appear
to have done anything. There was there was never any stated goals to the
campaign or anything, so I'm not even sure what they were trying to do
with it. It's kind of a really weird off the wild thing. Phoebe,
you got anything you want to throw in about it. Never in my
life have I ever seen somebody go and take from the Jehovah's Witness playbook spread
the message, Go out, tell your fellow man that they need to read
the good book? Can they need to hear the words of Jesus? And
it actually worked. No one has ever gone, yeah, you know those
cart wheelding, you know, door knocking suit children, Oh can I get
me? I got a church and you know, give up on my you
know, reading stuff. No one's ever said that, And this is probably
the first time someone Jove was witnesses. They they're doing it right, you
know, God, briy wowt's do what they do. Never, never in
my life I ever think that somebody went Joe was, well, you know
they've got they got they've got you know, two thirds of their children that
are born into the original leaving it. You know, but they're knocking on
doors and getting recruits and stuff. You know, they must be doing something
right. You know, Helen, when was the last time a driver it's
knocked on your door? Um, not in a while, because I have
a plaque at my door that says, um that um no proselytizing. Anyone
that violates this law would be sacrificed to gothulu it. Yeah, so I
don't get I don't get knocked in anymore. So. UM, when I
was reading over this, I was thinking about because I had just seen the
Hells documentary about them using pushing this air campaign about, you know, to
get absorbed millennials and younger people into the church. But it's not working because
guess what, as this generation keeps growing up and they're teaching their kids and
they're going to grow up that they're becoming less and less religious, they don't.
They're like, you are not progressing with the rest of the world.
And so basically, and who does this appeal to. The only people disappeals
to are people that are already a part of a religion and our faith to
not doing anything to me, you know, And I also too, he
does I doubt he gets queer people, just saying I doubt he gets people
that has autism, and are you know you know, I'm just saying,
yeah, it very much seems to me like more than anything, this is
a campaign focused at wealthy Christian like people who are already very much in the
faith, people who you know, maybe pew sitters, you know, as
they call them, so Pew warmers. Thank you so so you're you're here
and like you technically follow Jesus that you don't really do that much. So
here's a great way to do that. Give to our campaign because look at
all the great work that we're obviously doing, um again with is why it's
very very much worth reading this article, no matter how long it is,
because there is a moment where our wonderful author gives us just this incredible breakdown
of the search results right for things like Jesus and He gets Us, and
y'all, they are paltry. I mean, they are just paltry. For
a billion dollars that you're spending, you can't get people to just type it
into Google. I mean that that is outright of failure in my own Yeah,
but I did want to. I did want to touch on this real
quick, just because I thought it was funny. Because there's a lot of
really great stuff in this article, y'all. There is actually a website that
they talk about for He gets Us, UM and Apparently you can go to
the website and then tell them that you did good deeds for Jesus and then
they will send you a wrist bands or t shirts or books or whatever.
But apparently they don't. There's no like criteria for checking, like time is
you show and tell? Time is you show and tell? Come on?
I desperately wanted to get one, you guys, I was. I was
deeply concerned about them having my personal information, not at this time, but
hopefully in the future. I just wrist bad after. It is a bit
of a it's it's how can I say it. It's like someone's walking to
a bank, pulled down, you know, a balaclava and gone, yeah,
come along, I'm doing things in a minute on earth? Are you
doing? What earth are you doing? Man? Here? Because the billion
dollars apparently a billion dollars, I mean, and I'm going into the overall
archering he gets Us campaign or anything like that. What's actually happening here is
that there's a you know a bit of a bait and switch going on here.
It's actually not going into this campaign. It's actually you know, sliding
its way, sliding itself. It's going to park itself quite nicely under the
banner of caning for what we believe in, to hate those people that we
don't like, so that we can consolidate our power, so that we can
continue to hate those people, so we can get more money from you,
so that you can see that we're doing more things, so that we can
get more money by telling you that you need to help us to fight the
actual good fight, so that we can hate on more people, so that
we can consolidate pass so we can get this vicious cycle that keeps going round
and round and round and round. And one of my favorite people or ever
in the world of fiction said the following, somebody needs some therapy round here,
because someone said that we need soft on crime, soft on drugs,
soft communism, and soft on defense, soft done and the causes of crime.
A we're going to actually back to the stone because people shouldn't have to
work a diet they don't want to. And instead of going, excuse me,
you reactionary right wings, xenophobic, homophobic, anti education, anti choice
pro gone leave it to beaver back to the fifties, we alway seem to
have coward in the corner, and gone, please leave me alone. Don't
hurt me. Then we should be going follow the money, follow the sutting
money. People. The money isn't going in this campaign. These evangelic was
being told it's going into this campaign, but it's just not. It's just
not, is it Cally No, it seems like it didn't. As I
was saying, it's pretty easy to get there's not any oversight and getting all
these little pieces of shwag, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of
oversight. And where the money was being given to two it was just like,
oh, I'm going to tell a bunch of people in my neighborhood that
Jesus is just like them. Okay, here's ten grand, you know.
So it's it's just it's like a billion dollars worth of money, and there
just doesn't seem to be any oversight to it. It just seems to be
a bunch of I hate to say it, a bunch of preachers line in
their pockets with a little bit of extra cash. Yeah. Yeah, I
would love to say it wasn't so I would love to, but you know,
churches don't have to open up their books like other nonprofits do. So
will never ever know, will never know. But one of the things that
is a Sealion point brought up in the article about that billion dollars, at
least it's not being wasted on other well, they wouldn't consider it wasted.
We would on other things. That billion dollars didn't go to oppose LGBTQ rights,
It didn't go to the anti freedom, anti abortion advocates, it didn't
go to help Pastra Codian out of date bigoted laws. So you know,
as far as I'm concerned, hey, let them spend a shoote some of
money on a seemingly useless and quite frankly stupid campaign. Letting keep doing it.
I'm all for it. By most Super Bowl APT time, Yeah,
yeah, yeah, spend your money there instead of trying to pass live.
I almost want to write him a letter and tell him how much it changed
my life and what a great program it is, and you should expand on
it, keeps spending more, bought more money into it. But I have
a moral system, so I won't do that. I can't take advantage of
people unlike the organizers of this freaking campaign. And I think that's a good
segue, Kelly, because you know it. This article itself is is titled
will Evangelical fooled by that he gets Us? Campaign? And I think what
you just touched on is a really good piece of it because it, you
know, again looking at the metrics, it doesn't seem like, it doesn't
seem like non Christians are really taking up this message, right. It doesn't
seem like Muslims or Hindus or atheists or just suddenly just super interested in Jesus
and just like forgetting about all the bad stuff that religion has done forever.
Like, it doesn't seem to be the case. So the question then comes
to, well, are the people that this message is for? Are the
are the evangelicals believing this message? Do do you think more evangelicals agree with
this presentation of Christ in these uh in these you know, campaigns? Or
or do you think do you think the goal like do Christians already agree with
this message? Or are people switching over and saying like, well, I
do believe in Christ, but I didn't think of Christ like that. Okay,
that's cool. Um, what do you what do you think on that?
Phoebe like I should be sitting under Christ the Redeemer and deeming myself from
all the things that I've done wrong in my life because I don't feel like
I'm just doing something wrong here. I must be. So many of us
must be doing something wrong. This is how people can make money this day.
Na, I'm doing it wrong. I'm doing it wrong, and we
need to be looking at this for what it needs. Yes, okay,
it's fast, but it's keeping people employed to do what It's effectively nothing in
reality to just let's find bad time here. Put billboard up here doesn't mean
anything. But you know I've got job now, make worm jobs, to
be the church. It's just a bit. I feel like I'm missing out.
I'm missed out on you know, tax exemptions I missed out or you
know, an easy life or that things. Conscience free thought, Yeah,
pesky. Wanting the truth unfortunately requires that you have to sit out from some
seemingly fun activities. But yeah, what what do you what do you think
on this? Helen? Do you think do you think that evangelicals are are
getting behind this campaign message or were they already there? I mean, how
how do you think this is affecting that? I think that the old like
fire and Brimstone idea of heaven and hell isn't appealing to modern sensibility, and
um, I think that because there is more rhetoric around um skepticism and I'm
free thinking and I'm secular humanism, they have to be you know what,
like we'll make these Evan Chilcolls feel really good about loving Jesus because you get
everybody and you'll get people too, and you'll open your heart to ear because
they hear the secular's humans argument and they're like, huh. And then they
have to push against that because if they're not filling out the pews and giving
them the money, what they're gonna do, you know? And it just
it boggles my mind. There was one billion dollars to spend on them.
Do you know how many children and could have been fed with one billion dollars?
Could have done a lot of good in the world. I guess this
is more important. What do you think on all this, Kelly? But
it did do a lot of good. It made a whole bunch of Christians
really realized that Jesus is their buddy. It was buddy Christ like from the
movie That's Yea you know, so yeah, yeah, it seemed to me
like in a way, it's a great It was a great campaign ain't for
them to reinforce what they already believed, which is why it was so easy
for them to get the money right. And then you talk about hell and
I you know, you bring up a good point that money could have gone
to do is really good, but really, when has church money ever really
gone to feed children? I mean, I know sometimes it happens, but
I mean there's a lot of hungry children out there, and there's a lot
of money and a lot of churches, and it ain't helping those children out.
And I think we all know that. You know, every time you
see a church feeding children, it's not it's almost like a token thing so
that it looks good, but it's the problem could be solved with a lot
of the money and they're just not doing it. So and I don't want
to say that they should have to be responsible for it, but if they're
going to preach kindness and changing the world all for the better, actually start
doing it instead of making more commercials about how Jesus sees your buddy man.
I think that's a really really good point. So what about I know we're
all nonprofits here, but what about maybe doing a little bit of a prediction.
What do we think, guys, do we think that this campaign is
just going to peter out, like we're not going to hear about it in
six months, or do we think it's just gonna like ramp the freak up
and by the end of twenty twenty three they'll just be billboards everyone. What
do you think? It's a pop style nonsense coming through again, Peter Popov
and his steed money, Peter Popov running around again. You have mega pastas
running around her because it's an easy way to get get the green back.
It's just so easy. Yeah, here was a large check that'll do.
Here's a lot of large check that'll do. Oh, here's a third one
and that'll do nicely as well. As it's not going anywhere. The campaign
may be complete, not a horse manure. It may be you know,
dreamed up out of the you know, is stinking the china of somebody that
you know has nothing better to think about. But you know, it's just
a load of rubbish. What the actual campaign is that's just irrelevant here.
It's the fact that you know, George Washington is landing squarely on a green
piece of paper in front of you, are going yeah, that's that's quite
nice. Now, wonderful, A large stack of these. Now it must
be working. Keep doing that, Helen. What do you think, um,
Because we're getting close to an election year. Um, and I just
know the Christian right, I just know him this. I'm gonna I'm bet
I'm gonna. I bet we're going to see more of a push because it's
like, you know, basically, they're gonna be a line like vote for
Jesus. Your vote is your vote for Jesus, and he gets you,
and they'll come and the two messages will be all flim flam in these people's
heads and they will equate the campaign with voting for Jesus, vowing the person
that's closer to their God, or you know, whatever it is. And
I can see them to get more of those donations. And it's like,
well, we put a billion dollars into it, We're gonna get our money,
especially if we're being into an eluction year. I just I can just
see it having as the same playbook all the time. Yeah, what do
you think, Kelly, Is this going to be something that's we're just never
going to see the end of or will this be gone by the next nonprofits
episode. No, it will be gone by the next nonprofits episode, unfortunately.
But now where I live, I'm out in the rural area is and
I don't have those billboards here, so they do have some room to expand,
and they probably will. But you know, human beings are fickle.
We tend to follow fads, We don't stick with stuff. And I think
you'll probably see it die out in two three years, just on a realistic
level, it might. It will probably expand for another six months to a
year and then die off start dying off after that. So I think this
article does a really good job of of, you know, showcasing how this
campaign currently is just not successful and I don't think any of that is going
to change anytime soon. So I think that's great, you know, for
where I sit. If evangelicals want to spend a billion dollars, you know,
wasting it on you know, messages to their own people, I'm not
upset. But yeah, I think that's it for today. But as always,
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