“The goal is to invest about a billion dollars over the next three years,” he said. “And that is just the first phase.”
One of the ads that aired during the NFL playoffs was titled “That Day” and tells the story of an innocent man being executed.
“Jesus rejected resentment on the cross,” the ad says. “He gets us. All of us.”
A billion-dollar, three-year campaign would be on a par with advertising budgets for major brands such as Kroger grocery stores, said Lora Harding, associate professor of marketing at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee.
“This is a really remarkable ad spend for a religious organization or just a nonprofit in general,” said Harding, who worked on the “Open hearts, open minds, open doors” campaign for the United Methodist Church.
Religious-themed ads have been relatively rare at the Super Bowl. The Church of Scientology has run ads in the past, and in 2018 Toyota ran an ad with the message “We’re all one team,” featuring a rabbi, a priest, an imam and a saffron-robed monk headed to a football game, where they sat next to some nuns.
Closer to the “He Gets Us” model was the Christian Broadcasting Network’s $5 million national campaign to promote “The Book,” a repackaged version of The Living Bible translation, with a catchy theme song sung by country legend Glen Campbell.
Harding said that despite the cost, advertising at the Super Bowl makes sense for “He Gets Us.” Organizers want to reach a mass audience that is paying attention. Super Bowl ads have become part of the pageantry of the big game.
“There just aren’t ways to reach an attentive, engaged audience that size anymore,” she said.
She also said that the anonymity of the group behind the ads plays to the group’s advantage. It would be easy for viewers to dismiss an ad coming from a faith-based organization or religious group. The “He Gets Us” ads wait until the end to mention Jesus and don’t point to any specific church or denomination.
“That makes it even more powerful, and hits the message home in a really compelling way,” she said. “I think it does make Jesus more relevant to today’s audiences.”
Some viewers, including some evangelical Christians, are skeptical. Author and activist Jennifer Greenberg supports the idea of trying to reach those outside the faith and wants people to understand that Jesus gets them. But that’s not the whole message of Christianity.
“Yes, Jesus can relate to you,” she said. “But what did Jesus come primarily to do? He came to die for our sins.”
