Christian group Alpha plans first cinema ads
Christian study group Alpha is to launch a cinema campaign for the first time as it attempts to target younger people. The ad will launch in September.
Alpha is close to appointing an agency for its annual advertising push and three agencies are believed to be pitching for the creative contract for what it describes as the UK’s biggest annual Christian advertising initiative.
Previous Alpha campaigns, with a spend of up to &£1m, have concentrated on poster advertising and below-the-line marketing, however the organisation is keen to attract younger people to the courses and is set to move into filmed ads for the first time.
Last year’s campaign featured posters with a mobile phone text message “Is there more to life than this?”
The Alpha courses are run in some 7,000 churches of all denominations in the UK each year and aim to introduce students to the Christian faith.
It is estimated that almost 2 million people in the UK have attended courses, and Alpha programmes are run in most universities and prisons, as well as places of work and military establishments.
The course was developed at Holy Trinity Brompton church, London in the Seventies. It now covers 15 sessions and is described as a “practical introduction to the Christian faith designed primarily for non-churchgoers and new Christians”.
