Advertising as a Tax?

"I believe advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable."
- Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad

In church leadership, we talk a great deal about the fact that most people come to church because of a personal invitation of a friend or family member. To that end, we attempt to leverage that personal influence through series postcards and other advertising pieces that we put in our people's hands. The hope is that our people will personally give these to other individuals as a means of inviting them to attend church.

Whether you are a church or a business, you will need to spend more money and energy in advertising if you are unremarkable. If there is no buzz about you in the community, and if people do not personally refer you to others, you face the penalty (tax) of having to spend large amounts of dollars and energy in non-personal advertising.

This is not to say that advertising, in and of itself, for a church is wrong. Even the most remarkable churches will not be able to reach everyone through word of mouth. Effective, innovative advertising can reach these people. I think that the problem comes when you MUST advertise because nobody is talking about you. This is the tax for being unremarkable.