Church Marketing Sucks

“Your Ad Here” and “Your Corporate Logo Here” displayed alternately for two and a half hours on the side of the Cathedral of our Lady of Angels in Los Angeles, fully visible to commuters on the northbound Hollywood freeway Wednesday evening. Is the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles that hard up for cash? Well, after a $40 million clergy sex abuse settlement, yes, but it’s not their ad. It’s the work of 28-year-old artist James Cui. Using a laptop, a video projector and a generator he looks for blank, dark walls where he can display his work.

That sort of church marketing would suck, as Tod Tamburg, spokesman for the diocese says in what has to be the best ‘duh’ quote ever:

“A church tower is different from a billboard. If it wasn’t, we would have been selling ad space 2,000 years ago,” he said. “There are plenty of ways to communicate without making ad space out of your sanctuaries. I think most people would react negatively to that.”