JephMaystruck.com

Last Saturday morning I was woken at 9:45 by my doorbell.  No one comes to our house that early, it could be an emergency I thought to myself, so I staggered out of my room.  My room mate, in the same state (squinting eyes, wearing the pants from last night) was a step a head of me and opened the door.  To our dismay we found no one, just a little, old man leaving the yard going to the neighbors house.  We thought nothing of it except for how mad we were at this little, old man that got us with the ol’ ring and run trick.  Back to sleep.

Two and a half hours later I finally woke from my sleep and decided to check the temperature before I left the house.  Standing on the front porch something in the mailbox caught my eye, it was a “Heaven, how do I get there?” pamphlet.  The little, old man didn’t ring and run our house for nothing, he woke us up to ensure we got this pamphlet in time.  I think you understand the title for this post now.

Heaven’s a touchy subject, but I think Church is great, I try to go as much as I can and this has nothing to do with Church in general.  This has to do with the specific Church that lets this little, old man walk around neighborhoods ringing doorbells to try and get their message across.  Let’s think about this for a minute, how many people will answer the door, find that there’s no one there but grab the pamphlet that was left behind and say “You know I have been wondering for a while, how DO I get to Heaven?”  I’d be willing to bet no one.

So why ring the door bell?  The pamphlet isn’t time sensitive, I don’t need to read it immediately do I?  What ever happened to mail delivery etiquette and just leaving it in the box that it was intended for?  If your message is a difficult one to get across you may not want to piss people off before you tell them.

So do you want to know how to make me hate your organization no matter who you are?  Wake me up on a weekend to tell me your message, I guarantee I will hate you.

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In the 1960’s when advertising took off globally, mass media worked, radio sold advertising, TV was one of the best mediums, billboards commanded your attention, then it hit a tipping point.  At a certain point in time advertising became too much, I’m not sure when it was but it was at that point when we had to start ignoring ads.  This video clip from marketing guru Seth Godin sums up why marketers have lost our attention.  I like ads, I like questioning marketing campaigns but for the first time the other day I caught myself ignoring ads.  It was a fascinating trip to the grocery store that proved for myself how hard it is to get a message across, even when it’s staring you in the face.

Just like everyone else in our world that doesn’t shop at Safeway, I received bad service at a grocery store.  Such a bad experience drove me to going to their website and trying to give them feedback as to why I was unhappy leaving their establishment.  During the feedback questionnaire one question caught me off guard, “Did you notice any signage talking about 1000 flavors of Canada?” I reflected on my visit and couldn’t remember seeing anything so I selected “no”.

A week passes and I’m in the area of this super market again with nothing else close by to patronize instead. In a hurry I decide to pick up something to eat.  Entering the super market I recall the survey I took so I look for “1000 flavors of Canada”.  Little to my surprise was that the entire store was covered with these signs and I didn’t see one of them in my previous visit, not even one sign.

I finally understood what Mr. Godin was talking about.  This grocery store was trying to interrupt me with their signs.  It didn’t matter the size or location, I wasn’t looking for them so I didn’t see them.

Just because our eyes see something does not mean our brains remember it.  Our generation is getting increasingly better at ignoring messages that we don’t want to remember.  Therein lies the power of the internet, it is there for when I want something, until then don’t bother interrupting me with your message.

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