UU Marketing Campaign Set to Launch

Can you believe ... ?

Our non-dogmatic, non-evangelistic denomination is about to begin a $300,000 marketing campaign right here in the Bay Area, to spread "the good news." And the good news is Unitarian Universalism!

The good news is also that we are among the 17 Bay Area UU congregations which will be very visible come mid-September. People from San Jose to Napa, Santa Rosa to Livermore will see and hear about our open, inclusive faith. We've promised to share the details as we get them, and here's what we know now:

The campaign will begin the week of September 10th with a few radio announcements on KQED to warm up our audience.

The media plan includes:

KQED: Four weeks of General Service Announcements on many of your favorite shows --All Things Considered, Morning and Weekend Edition, News, and Prairie Home Companion.

KQKE: Six weeks on Air American with Thom Hartman, a new environmental show called Green Seed Radio and the Progressive News Hour with John Scott.

The Daily Show and Colbert Report on Comedy Central (cable): To attract the young, liberal audience we will run 4 weeks of commercials on this popular show!

Newspaper Inserts: About 400,000 four-page, four-color inserts in the major newspapers the weekend of October 4-7.

Direct Mail: 250,000 oversized postcards sent to households in our market the week of September 24th. Those same households will get the four-page insert mailed directly to their homes the week of October 15th for a one-two punch!

Specialty Publications: Newspaper ads in the major LGBT weekly publication, the Bay Area Reporter, and full-page four-color ads in the following national magazines (we’ve purchased a regional edition) Parents, Parenting, Family Fun and American Baby.

100 "billboards" in BART stations the month of October

Internet: Google ads and web banners on specialty sites.

Guerrilla Marketing: Lots of small ads in newsletters, on the web, etc.

All the ads will direct people to www.uuba.org, a website with some basic information about UUism --and links to the websites of all 17 congregations.

Several people in our congregation have been working hard over this past year to get us ready for company, and now everyone is invited to join the excitement. Let's ask our friends, neighbors, and co-workers if they've seen the ads -- and answer any questions for them. Let's watch for visitors, and do everything we can to help them feel comfortable. We all know how proud we are of our congregation; this is a great chance to help others find what we've found here.

Here's something else to be proud of: the money for this campaign came from 629 members of our local churches. Three other areas have run media campaigns (Kansas City, Houston, and most recently Orange County/South LA). In those cases, the money came from a handful of donors. Ours is the first campaign to raise this much money --and with this breadth of support. Many thanks to all the contributors -- and to the UUA for developing the campaign materials and for providing staff time to support this effort.