I’m A Mormon Case Study Boncom Salt Lake City, Utah 2014 Objective: Boncom’s assignment was to assist the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Missionary Department in understanding, reaching and addressing people not of our faith through media initiatives. Timeframe: 2009 - present Catalysts: Mitt Romney first ran for President of the United States in 2008, drawing unprecedented attention to the Church. He promised to run again in 2012. In addition, the Church’s involvement in Proposition 8 in California resulted in unprecedented media coverage. As a result of these two factors and many others, the Church’s Missionary Department chose to reexamine the way it communicates its message and values to the general public. History: The website, Mormon.org, first came into existence around 2002 as a destination for the general public who wanted to know more about the Church and hopefully talk with a missionary. (This was in contrast to LDS.org, which is the Church’s official site for its members.) The site’s messaging strategy followed a tried and true Mormon missionary tactic: asking “questions of the soul.” These questions include, Where did I come from? Where am I going? and Why am I here? The serious messages were warmed by the video and photographic portraits of Mormons talking about the Church’s answers to these questions, but the site wasn’t performing as well as hoped.
Transcript
I’m A Mormon Case Study Boncom Salt Lake City, Utah 2014 Objective: Boncom’s assignment was to assist the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Missionary Department in understanding, reaching and addressing people not of our faith through media initiatives. Timeframe: 2009 - present Catalysts: Mitt Romney first ran for President of the United States in 2008, drawing unprecedented attention to the Church. He promised to run again in 2012. In addition, the Church’s involvement in Proposition 8 in California resulted in unprecedented media coverage. As a result of these two factors and many others, the Church’s Missionary Department chose to reexamine the way it communicates its message and values to the general public. History: The website, Mormon.org, first came into existence around 2002 as a destination for the general public who wanted to know more about the Church and hopefully talk with a missionary. (This was in contrast to LDS.org, which is the Church’s official site for its members.) The site’s messaging strategy followed a tried and true Mormon missionary tactic: asking “questions of the soul.” These questions include, Where did I come from? Where am I going? and Why am I here? The serious messages were warmed by the video and photographic portraits of Mormons talking about the Church’s answers to these questions, but the site wasn’t performing as well as hoped.
Because of the catalysts described above and the site’s poor performance, the Missionary Department approached Bonneville Communications (Boncom) about researching a new strategy for the site. With the help of Ogilvy and Mather (Chicago) and Hall & Partners, Boncom set out to first understand who the site’s audience would be. This was unprecedented for the Missionary Department, which had previously done all research, strategy and creative inside using Church resources. The research was performed in 2009 and the new Mormon.org site launched in June of 2010 with the accompanying I’m A Mormon campaign. Audience: With the help of Ogilvy and Hall & Partners, Boncom created and executed an extensive values-based study of the general American population. The study resulted in a segmentation based on attitudes towards organized religion and their own religious observance. The segments included three particularly fruitful groups of
people: Contented Traditionalists, Parallel Parishioners and Church Averse Believers. These three groups were united in their desire to live a more purposeful life, but the Church Averse Believers did not see organized religion filling that need for them. It was decided that Mormon.org going forward would strive to address only Parallel Parishioners and Church Averse Believers, a little less than half of the US population, rather than try talking to everyone. (Due to their personal commitment to their faith traditions, Contented Traditionalists promised to be less fruitful.)
Research: The study also revealed the population’s most prevalent beliefs and attitudes about Mormons, and it was clear that persistent myths and misperceptions abounded and that perception about Mormonism was considerably lower than expected. In order to attract and convert individuals who would be ready to actively participate and contribute to the Church, the Missionary Department needed to focus on de-stigmatizing the Church, increasing the relevance of the messages, and engaging a target audience in ways that prompted further investigation.
Strategy: Out of the research findings, the Boncom team chose to focus on a three-pillar approach: Individuality (an area of rampant misperception), Family (one of the only qualities for which the Church was positively associated), and Service (a quality for which the Church wanted to be known for more.) It was decided that Mormon.org and the supporting advertising campaign would promote the vibrant Individuality of the Church’s membership, while separate projects would focus on the other two themes of Service and Family. The strategy directed a three-pronged approach to the new Mormon.org site: 1.) high-quality video portraits of selected individual members, 2.) written profiles by as many rank and file members as possible, and 3.) a robust FAQ section where myths and misperceptions could be righted with straightforward answers from the institution and the members themselves. In order to truly demonstrate members’ individuality, the institutional voice on the site was minimized, to the point of allowing misspellings and incorrect grammar on member-submitted content.
Evolution: Over the life of the campaign, several factors prompted changes or developments to the campaign. First, the Book of Mormon musical opened on Broadway, prompting Boncom to take the campaign to the show’s largest destinations (New York and London) and place permanent ads in the show’s Playbill.
Second, Mitt Romney did run for president a second time, prompting Boncom to create an abridged version of Mormon.org with key questions people were asking about Mormons in 2012. And third, Church leadership requested that video subjects all use the proper, full name of the Church in their remarks and on the video endslates. Hand in hand with this development, the portraits strategically shifted to focus on more spiritual reflections and points of doctrine, whereas before they had been true personality portraits. Results: Boncom engaged Hall & Partners again in 2013 to perform another comprehensive survey to measure the effect of the 3-year campaign. Boncom was delighted to find that acceptance of the Church among the target audience increased by 10% between 2009 and 2013. In addition, among the specific target of Parallel Parishioners, interest in learning more about the Church increased from 3% in 2009 to 13% in 2013.
Creative: The Mormon.org site that launched in June 2010 was colorful, bright and very different from the Church’s other institutional web properties, again emphasizing the individual and non-institutional feeling of the site. The tone of the creative was friendly, lighthearted, and focused on the diversity and fulfillment of individual members.
Videos: The Boncom team has produced over 200 videos with members of the Church from around the world. Click on the links below to watch these selected video portraits.
Elaine Bradley Nadia Deskins Kristy Glass Nnamdi Okonwo Lindsey Stirling Mike Turvey Frank Mansuetto New York City’s Times Square (to accompany the opening of the Book of Mormon musical):
