Posted on 03/01/2004 7:28:41 AM PST by chance33_98
Christian Businesses Turn Passion into Profit
3/1/04 10:06:00 AM
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To: National Desk
Contact: Lesily Davis, 949-481-4987
LADERA RANCH, Calif., March 1 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A few years ago, Mel Gibson could not find a distributor for his movie "The Passion of the Christ." "I needed to express this," Gibson said. So he funded the $25 million biblical saga with his own money. To market "Passion," Gibson turned to the Christian community, the movie's core audience. On February 25, Ash Wednesday, "Passion" opened on about 2,000 screens and made $117 million by the following Sunday.
Gibson's passion to market the message of Christ's salvation demonstrates that the Christian community supports marketing with a message. Few businesses capitalize on the Christian message. Christian businesses that market products with a Christian message may get a boost from the publicity surrounding Passion.
For Aurelio Barreto, his retail chain C28 all started with a vision from God to have Christian stores in malls across the nation. C28 derived its name from a biblical reference in Colossians 2:8, which states that "it not about this world but all about Christ," At that time, the retail concept had never been proven before. There were thousands of Christian stores, but none for youth. Today there are four C28 stores throughout Southern California.
Manufacturers are also basing their entire business on the Christian message. "You can't open a surf magazine without half naked women hawking their products or seeing businesses like Billabong shortening their name to Bong," said attorney Jason Davis. "There are millions of people who do not want to support certain businesses because they market their products with sex and drug innuendos, but the alternative choices were very slim." In response, Davis created a Christian surf label, eden surfboards, which markets surfboards and surf apparel to directly compete with the name brand labels.
At first glance, there is little difference between eden surfboards' products and that of main stream surf labels. Many customers may not even realize that they are wearing surf apparel with a Christian message. But a look under the label or a visit to their website and customers can see their Christian message.
This concept of marketing Christianity subtlety is not new. In & Out Burgers has been marketing their Christian message for years. On the bottom of every drinking cup is a reference to John 3:16, the often quoted verse "that God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son."
Nor is Christian branding likely to disappear anytime soon. "For years businesses have been secularized and the character and values of the leaders of those businesses have been something the public just had to accept" said Jason Davis. "But this has all changed; Mel Gibson has shown the public that that if you have a Christian message that you want the world to know about, you shouldn't be afraid to market it."
For more information contact Lesily Davis at 949-481-4987.
The Chicken is pretty good too!
I have had some health problems of late and surgery so I am just getting up to speed again. Went out to dinner on Friday evening... first time in awhile and then we went to see The Passion last evening. Today, I am freeping and about to take a nap. Us oldsters need that nap sometimes just like kiddies! LOL.
I received four letters from some of the soldiers we sent all the packages to. But, you know we moved so some letters might not have followed us. One letter made me tear-up because it was all dirty and muddy looking... inside and out. I could just remember all that mud when I was Korea all those years ago.
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