Empowerment Marketing…and Theology
This is another fantastic commercial that represents an emerging approach to advertising that seeks to empower its audience. It’s something of a counter-cultural approach in that most of advertising for nearly the last century has been dominated by what Jonah Sachs calls “inadequacy marketing.” Such marketing seeks to create in you a sense of lack – the belief that you do not have enough, even that you are not enough – in order to promise you that if you purchase the product being advertised you will not experience that sense of lack any longer.
In his wonderful book, Winning the Story Wars
Don’t get me wrong. This is still advertising, and the hope of the advertiser is that you will associate these positive emotions and experiences with their product. Hence, in this commercial, Duracell hopes that you will connect the tenacity and spirit of the Seattle Seahawks’ Derrick Coleman with Duracell batteries and be more likely to buy them.
Whatever the motivation, I think it’s still an incredibly powerful alternative to the dominate mode of advertising. And I think we in the church can learn something from it. Too often, I think, we have defined Christianity in terms of lack – what we are not – instead of in terms of what God calls us to be. And so “sin” is not, as in Paul, a force in the world that seeks to rob the children of God of abundant life, but rather is a catalogue of all the things we’ve done wrong. And “grace” isn’t the power to claim new life in Christ, but rather is something that only makes up for our sins.
So lately I find myself wonder what a “theology of empowerment” would look like. I don’t know, for sure, but I suspect it would look a lot more like the gospel the Jesus proclaimed and Paul shared than we sometimes hear. I’d be interested in what you think as well. In the meantime, enjoy this commercial and the sense of empowerment and possibility it creates.
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I can see where you are coming from in describing the kind of commercial, and it did have me feeling empowered until the very end. I don’t know what kind of hearing aid this young man is wearing but from past experience with my brother who was deaf ANY battery the right size would operate it and let’s not forget to mention feedback. Feedback from a hearing aid sounds like a high pitch ringing and it gets set off from receiving to many sounds at once; for example, a small size family sitting around the dinner table enjoying conversation and someone laughs too loud at the same time. Needless to say a stadium full of people, especially Super Bowl, he NEVER would have worn his hearing aid and for him to say he was able to wear it and hear everybody is a load of crap! I hope he got paid good money for that commercial and can sleep at night about spreading lies to America about deaf people who are grossly misunderstood.
Thanks for your comment, Elizabeth. For what it’s worth, I took his final words metaphorically – not that he could actually/physically hear all the crowd but that he felt it, heard it in the sense that he had achieved his goal of overcoming the odds against him.
When do we find commonality in our struggles and when does respect mean acknowledging the differences of those struggles? And who gets to decide which it is?
These days I am more interested in putting the focus of my life into words and actions that show the grace I have experienced. It is my intention to receive words like “You are the light of the world” and “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” as the empowerment they seem to be. Else the words “I baptize you” and “This is my body… my blood” are not what I have found them to be in my life.
WOW I do live in the NW and although Ive not been a huge sports follower one cannot live in the NW and not cheer on the Seahawks But this WOW it touched my soul
I have worn hearing aids since I was in my 20s when they finally were “good” enough to work for me. I know how hard it is to not hear and to keep on keeping on
Im deeply touched by this young mans life…and his tenacity to not let his hearing aids be a stumbling block…at least not one to stop him. Blessings