The Marketing of Narnia Run Amok!

Tim Challies warned us about this, but did we listen?  Nooooo!  But my fine feathered Canuck friend is being proven right more and more every day.  Way back on November 14th, Tim told us this:

And now the secret is out. Evangelicals are dry tinder just waiting for the strike of a match. Evangelicals are primed and ready to play a role in marketing efforts. Following on the heels of The Passion of the Christ comes The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

And this:

It seems to me that a greater number of Protestants will be eager and willing to see this movie. This is something the marketers know only too well. Quoted in an article in The Christian Post is Abram Brook, editorial writer for Leadership Magazine. "[T]hey're using all the tactics that made 'The Passion of the Christ' a blockbuster," he says. "But...we have to wonder: 'Is the church being used?' or more precisely, 'How crassly is the church being used?'" Just a few days ago I was speaking to a pastor who was marvelling that a company was willing to hand him all sorts of door-hangers and posters for the movie. But of course they were willing to do this! If the pastor distributes these, he is doing valuable, target marketing for the movie! It would seem the church is being used quite crassly.

And, my personal sociological guru and good friend Glenn Lucke, says this:

Imagine the amusement of marketers when they hear the notion of utterly unique individuals. Think how much harder their job would be! One marketer told me how he and his colleagues can predict (usually) with accuracy what percentage of 280 million Americans will buy a particular product based on their marketing campaigns. It is largely a science—push these buttons, pull these strings, and voila, millions of consumers buy en masse.

So, what's the latest button to push/string to pull for the marketers. They are pulling the strings of preachers now.  This just in from Phil Ryken of Tenth Pres in Philly on the Reformation 21 blog.

Say "Narnia," Collect $1000
  12/5/2005
    posted by Philip Ryken
 
  Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Walt Disney Pictures is offering a free trip to London and a thousand dollars in cash to the winner of its promotional sermon contest.  To qualify, a sermon has to mention Disney's new Narnia film.  So welcome to a new medium of marketing: the sermo-mercial.  It would seem that something more than Aslan is on the move.  I wonder: Would mentioning the film while decrying the absurdity of the promotion qualify one's sermon for the contest?

Now please understand.  I am as excited about the new Narnia movie as anyone.  I'm looking forward to seeing it as soon as possible and from all I have been reading and hearing about it I am very optimistic that I, and thousands of Narnia lovers, will be very pleased with the movie.  In fact, may I encourage you to stop by Common Grounds Online every day this week to celebrate Narnia week, which has been kicked off with a wonderful little essay by Catherine Claire on Lucy Pevensie.

But as we enjoy the movie let's be aware that a very subtle thing that is happening here.  Just as Aslan is on the move in Narnia, so the servants of Mammon are on the move in our world seeking to make us evangelicals their servants.  There is nothing wrong with enjoying a good movie, but let's resist those who would co-opt us in the worship of their gods.

P.S. - Thanks to Mark Daniels at Better Living for helping me with my spelling on this.  I had the title as "Amock" but it is actually "Amok!"  Thanks Mark!

Comments

[Donnell]

Disney is a business and what they care about is money. The church is a ministry and what we care about is promoting the Kingdom of God.

If both can be accomplished at the same time then it's ok. However, if Disney is the only one benefitting then it's not ok.

Mark 9:40(KJV) - For he that is not against us is on our part.

[Rusty Lopez]

David,

I agree that much of the marketing push behind the Narnia movie, especially with regards to the church, is crass. I doubt, however, that anyone can claim to truly be surprised by such marketing. We live, after all, in an economy driven by free enterprise.

I think that, at worst, we have to put up with such methods and, at best, we get some really cool screensavers, desktops, posters, games, etc... ;^)

[Ken]

Evangelicals are primed and ready to play a role in marketing efforts.

Examples include Tara Foundations "Lord Matriyah" hoax and Last Temptation of Christ. "Piss off those Xians" and you get a lot of self-sustaining free publicity.

And Evangelicals have ZERO sales resistance if you punch their buttons right -- witness all the Christian Tack-o items you find on the shelves of Bible Bookstores (TM). Emboss a Bible quote on any sort of kitsch and you can sell it.

[Funky Dung]

P.S. - Thanks to Mark Daniels at Better Living for helping me with my spelling on this. I had the title as "Amock" but it is actually "Amok!" Thanks Mark!

"Amuck" would have worked as well.

[Terry]

Okay a couple of questions.

There are hundreds, no thousands of sermons preached between now and the opening. How exactly do you submit your sermon for Disney for approval? Does it have to be in writing or audio form? What about those pastors who have gone to giving a morning mediation? Do they qualify? Since I'm not lisenced yet, would any of my sermons count? What about a house church, would the person giving the lesson in the house church qualify? And for that matter, who at the Friends Meeting house (Quakers) would qualify for this Disney promo? I'm just trying to get it straight.

Mentioning getting it straight, I looked up the contest at the website. I think the reporter at the Philly Inquirer needs explain the connection between Sermon Central, MTS Travel and Disney.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/13324125.htm

Clearly the contest is advertised at Sermon Central and the stated sponsors are both Sermon Central and MTS Travel, a travel agency targeting travel for the pastor.

http://sermoncentral.com/
http://www.mtstravel.com/pastors/

I'm not sure but it could be that some of the things said by David O'Reilly at the Inquirer could be tongue in cheek. Nahhhh.

[Miss O'Hara]

Oh, good heavens, are we REALLY surprised? We saw a similar push with 'the greatest evangelical tool in two thousand years', "The Passion of the Christ" (hey, who needs Jesus when we have Mel Gibson?). And as another commenter has noted, Evangelicals are sheep in more ways than one - they'll buy anything with a fish, cross, or remotely 'Christian' anything on it.

It isn't the marketers being crass; they are doing their job. It's the Evangelicals being thoughtless and easily convincable for too many things that had little to do with anything that has led to their being 'preyed upon' the way Disney is.

That aside, I can't wait to see the movie. I've loved Narnia since I was a child, and still cry when Aslan arises from the dead. I hear the movie is quite true to the book. :)

[cavman]

The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

Disney just cares about money, and they don't care who they get it from.

I'll enjoy the movie, and did use it to illustrate how the darkness did not overcome the light, which still shines this past Sunday.

But all the other garbage associated with kids movies today can stay on the shelves. If Christians wouldn't buy THAT, the companies would lose money and keep the focus on the movie (which has a message) and not the trinkets which often ignore or corrupt that message. I think Cranach- Gene Veith's blog has some really sad examples of missing the point.

[Andy Jackson]

Hey David, I think we might be going a little overboard on our concerns here. I commented on this post at SmartChristian.com

[wfseube]

Good heavens, we complain when movie makers create trashy movies, and now we're complaining about how marketing is done around a good movie. Is there no satisfying people?? This is a business they're running. Business is about creating content that people want to watch. The "Passion of the Christ" proved that Christians will attend movies with a Christian theme. So now they're catering to that (us) audience. This is the kind of thing that happens in a capitalist system. Would you prefer doing it the Communist Chinese way?

I think our griping time is better spent on something that's really significant. Let's just enjoy the Narnia film and forget about the fact that it's a for-profit effort that comes with marketing.

[wfseube]

Let me temper my prior comment by saying: I don't approve of pastors "preaching" about Chronicles of Narnia in order to promote the movie. That's abhorrent. However, I would expect that some pastors would take advantage of the attention paid to the story by preaching the Gospel and using Narnia as an illustration of that. It's a convenient time to do it!

[joe]

Sure, Evangelical Protestants are being used by Disney and its marketeers, but certainly a large proportion of these usees see an opportunity to use Disney and its marketeers in turn. EPs see the opportunity to use marketing hype to further the spread of their version of the gospel...which is really quite ridiculous. Those who have read the whole Chronicles of Narnia series know exactly what I am talking about.

To put it simply, C.S. Lewis was a High Church Anglican, meaning he was a sacramentalist with very strong Catholic and Orthodox sympathies. His soteriology had nothing to do with "JUST accept Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour," but more with he/she "who endures to the end will be saved." [Mt. 24:13] This means, of course, no easy-believism, no "eternal security/oncesavedalwayssavedism.

EPs read into Lewis' texts, their "JUST accept Jesus as your personal savior" triteness and now, riding the wave of Narnia hype would have the world come to, "JUST accept Aslan as your personal savior!"

[Barrie]

As an Australian, I am surprised you getting hung up about the commercialism of one movie based on a classic Christian story. What I find far worse is the abundance of unoriginal pap/pop novels and gimmicky feel-good books on the shelves of every Christian bookstore. The sheer volume suggests blatant commercial interest and no interest in discrimination orgenuine quality, just what you find in an airport bookshop. The Church mimicking the commercial world in fact.
As a result, excellent works like C.S.Lewis's are swamped by short-lived comparative trash - after all he's dead, so he doesn't need the bucks!
I think the dollar exploitation of Christians by writers and publishers generally is the real point. Evangelicals are their own worst enemies and don't need to point the finger at Disney; after all, really discriminating evangelicals [compare Gibson] could have produced the movie instead, if they could recognise real quality in the first place..