‘Baby scan' Jesus posters to hit city streets with Christmas message
 
Commuters across Notts will be reminded of the real Christmas message when a high impact national advertising campaign rolls out in the next few weeks.
 
Posters provided by Churchads.net featuring a 'Baby Scan' of Jesus with a halo, and the words, ‘He’s on His Way – Christmas starts with Christ’, will appear on various bus stops in towns and cities from 6th to 27th December and there will also be a series of radio commercials to back up the campaign on Trent FM and TRAX FM.
 
Both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic churches are backing the campaign locally and the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler and his Roman Catholic counterpart, the Bishop of Nottingham, the Rt Revd Malcolm McMahon will be adding their personal support to the venture.
 
PHOTO OPPORTUNITY:
Both Bishops will be available for photos next to one of the city bus stop posters featuring the baby scan Jesus on Friday, 17th December 2010 at 11.45am at Sherwood Library, 524 Mansfield Rd, Nottingham.
 
Bishop Paul said: "I'm very pleased to be backing this campaign from Churchads.net. The posters are a prominent reminder of the humanity and divinity of Christ and point to the real reason for our Christmas celebrations."
 
Bishop Malcolm commented: "This is a fantastic opportunity for us to help people consider the real message of hope and joy central to Christmas. I'm very happy to be able to support the campaign which is being promoted by a whole spectrum of Christian denominations across the country."
 
Organisers behind the campaign are confident it will be effective, since recent research from a pilot campaign proved its success in raising awareness.*
Chair of the Christian charity Churchads.net, Francis Goodwin said: “The adverts have a powerful image with 8 words that manage to communicate the Christmas message. Our objectives are simply to help people focus on the Christian message in the midst of the celebrations and  rediscover the story of the nativity. This follows on from our 19 year track record of producing Christian Advertising.”
 
Church groups and individuals have been buying poster sites through the internet and donating to the national campaign which aims to see 2,000 billboards displaying the advert. Francis explained: “At the moment we have funds for about half of the campaign, but donations and booking are still coming in and we are still hoping to hit our ambitious target. In addition to the paid for media we have also distributed 40,000  A3 window posters via The Universe newspaper and have radio adverts running on commercial stations nationally. This will be a very visible and audible campaign.”
 
This year two new 30 second radio adverts follow in the theme of four previous adverts from past years and tell the Christmas story in modern setting. One takes the form of an Airport Announcement and the other an answerphone message from Joseph. The adverts can be downloaded free from churchads.net online and will be broadcast on national networks and some 20 plus local commercial radio stations in the run up to Christmas, with the backing of local church groups.
 
The campaign also has an on line presence through the website http://christmas.org.uk/ linked to a number of key Christmas projects back by the Jerusalem Trust. The site is linked to facebook and twitter feeds with news and updates regularly available during advent.
 
This is the second year of a 5 year themed campaign with the line – ‘Christmas Starts with Christ". Last year posters depicted modern-day nativity scene in a bus shelter reprinted from a work of art by Andrew Gadd.
 
Although the main focus of the campaign is in the UK, there has been global interest and requests for posters and advice from the USA , Canada, Argentina, Jamaica, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Australia, Germany and Russia.
 
The Churches Advertising Network has been producing striking (and sometimes controversial) national campaigns since the early 1990s.ChurchAds.Net, previously know as the Churches Advertising Network (CAN), has secured the services of some of the UK's top award winning advertising executives and designers, who give their work to the church for free.

ChurchAds.Net is an ecumenical Christian network operating with a Council of Reference** which includes a bishop and leaders from across the church denominations.

The network has been supported by the Jerusalem Trust for a number of years, enabling it to create high quality radio adverts and establish a national radio advertising campaign by paying for airtime. More recently the trust has supported churchads.net integrated campaign including posters, radio adverts and website activity.
 
*Editor’s note:
 A recent pilot campaign tested out the poster’s impact in Jamaica and showed powerful results. The campaign consisted of 21 billboards displayed in major conurbations in Jamaica for 5 weeks. The research was professionally conducted by Marketing Strategy Limited and showed the Churchads.net posters form a powerful campaign, achieving a 23 per cent awareness, amongst males and females. The research showed how quickly awareness can build with posters in a short period, with results showing very positive recall of messages from those tested, who stated, ‘Christ/God is coming soon.’
 
ends
 
Churchads.net:
 
**Council of reference

Rt Revd Nick Baines, Bishop of Croydon; Mark Russell, Chief Executive, Church Army; Mark Greene, Executive Director, London Institute of Contemporary Christianity; Nick Spencer, Director of Studies, Theos and David Wilkinson, Principal of St John's College, University of Durham

Trustees

Francis Goodwin, Chair, Founder member; Mike Elms, Vice-chair, London Institute of Contemporary Christianity; Tony Kinch, Treasurer, Methodist minister

Executive team

Amanda Allchorn, Head of Communications, Baptist Union of Great Britain; Chas Bayfield, Creative Director, Christians in Media; Ali Burnett, Freelance Radio Presenter/Producer; Martin Casson, Creative Director, Christians in Media; David Coleman, Communications Manager, Church Army; Anna Drew, Lead Media Officer, The Methodist Church; Rachel Farmer, Director of Communications, Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham; Charis Gibson, Senior Press Officer, Evangelical Alliance UK; Miles Giljam, Head of Communications, Evangelical Alliance UK; Martin Hazell, Director of Communications, United Reformed Church; Joseph Kelly, Managing Director of The Universe; Liz Hudson-Oliff, Director of Communications, Diocese of Leicester; Simon Jenkins, Web producer and editor of Ship of Fools; Christine Kinch, Minutes Secretary, freelance journalist; David Marshall, Director of Communications, Diocese of Manchester; Tony Miles, Media Chaplain, The Methodist Church and Gareth Squire, Partner, 3Consult.co.uk
 
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