Outdoor advertising has divine sanction. Just as the first advent was announced in the great out-of-doors by the heralds of the sky, so also the second advent of Christ, the supreme event in the history of the universe, has been announced on God's colossal signboard, by spectacular phenomena in the heavens. Signs and events so important that God chose the most strategic places in which to show them, surely deserve our best efforts in giving them the most arresting presentation possible.
No denomination or religious group has thus far undertaken outdoor advertising on a large scale. While traveling in Norway, I observed that here and there among the roads winding through the Norwegian fiords, some zealous folks had dashed three words in white on the rocks, "Jesu Kammer Snart,"—Jesus is coming soon. So great and grand a message as ours is surely worthy of the best that thought and art can give. Practically all of the sporadic religious advertising in the outdoor field savors of fanaticism or crudeness, thus prejudicing and repulsing rather than attracting those it desires to reach. There is opportunity for something worthwhile.
Along with oral preaching should go visual teaching; and the latter, exemplified through outdoor advertising, is worthy of as much thought, and is as truly essential as the former. Tests show that a fact seen is remembered 90 per cent better than a fact heard. Thus the visual sense is far stronger than the auditory.
Ninety-seven of the leading industries of the country, according to Starch, authority on advertising, are selling their products on a national scale by means of posters scattered over the nation's highways. The results are surprising. Magazine advertisements reach but 47 per cent of the population, he shows, while outdoor posters reach 83 per cent. Even newspapers do not reach so large a reading public. So this message, the most vital thing in the world, can reap real, tangible results from the use of this rapidly growing medium, if it is utilized.
At the General Conference session, leading evangelists and other workers voiced their desire for highway posters that would give the peculiar truths of this message on the outdoor billboard. This resulted in the unanimous adoption by the General Conference, of a resolution authorizing the production of a series of posters along the lines of the suggestive miniature posters presented at that time and pictured here. These miniatures are the work of an outstanding artist and are produced in appropriate colors. They are merely suggestive of further ideas that might be developed by the rather new but now well-known "screen process."
Our denominational books are filled with illustrations and expositions of the signs of the times. How impressive these truths could be made when graphically illustrated on the outdoor billboard, accompanied by trenchant phrases of Holy Writ in explanation. For instance, that inescapable warning of Jesus, pointing out the significance of these last days, when he said, "This generation shall not pass." After the several specific signs, as recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this keynote lingers as the unceasing toll of a bell that sounds the alarm of impending doom. Jesus wants us to give those signs and that warning to all men everywhere. How forcefully Habakkuk prophesied, as translated by Luther, "Write the vision plainly, that he that runneth by may read." Hab. 2:2. National billboard advertising could help to fulfill this prophecy as no other agency employed at the present time. We have our good books filled from cover to cover with this precious truth. They are as mines of gold. Let us remove the covers from these books by placing their essential contents in poster form on the highway billboards of the country, thus sharing the wealth of this treasure with the unwarned millions of earth.
The possibilities are limitless. Every church in the country, for instance, could arrange to have a series of twelve posters, one to be shown each month. These could be rotated, thus displaying a dozen posters during the course of the year. Each display might cover some particular sign of our times, and its meaning, or even present the cardinal beliefs of this movement by illustration, with pithy statements. For example, the signs on earth and in heaven could be given. The first, showing a scene of troubled waters with battleships, airplanes, dirigibles, and a smoke screen forming the words, "Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars," from whence the eye would inevitably fall upon those inescapable words of Jesus, "This generation shall not pass."
This poster might be followed by another, "There shall be famines, and pestilences," as a caption to the stark drama of a bleak mountainside with a mother clutching her starving children, followed by that haunting warning, "This generation shall not pass." Again, another sign: "There shall be earthquakes in divers places," the reeling, swaying, jagged sky line of a mighty metropolis caught in the grip of a last-day quake, followed with that recurring phrase, "This generation shall not pass." Signs celestial would logically follow. On one display two contrasting pictures could be shown,—the dark day of May 19, 1780, to be followed by another picture of the moon as it rose that eventful night over the surging falls of the Niagara turned to crimson, thus making the falls as a cataract of blood, further emphasized with that unmistakable declaration, "This generation shall not pass."
What a dramatic climax would be the display of a New England village, awe-struck inhabitants with hands uplifted, looking skyward at the unprecedented spectacle of the stars falling from heaven. As a thunderbolt from a clear sky, burning and branding its way into the most hardened of consciences the words: "This generation shall not pass," would never be forgotten. Thus the message for this time could be shown ad infinitum, by means of the highway poster.
Not only could each church be responsible for the erection and maintenance of even the largest highway posters in their city, but evangelists could utilize these posters in connection with their evangelistic efforts on a weekly rotation, even using as sermon titles those listed on the billboards. In every poster, space would be provided for a "bull's-eye" (i. e., a special spot where the eye normally focuses to the point of greatest attention), whereon the location of the tent, tabernacle, hall, or church could be inserted, and in the case of a radio broadcast, the hour of broadcast and station could be placed.
As a beginning, these posters could be made available to the evangelists for use in connection with tent and hall efforts. Later, the missionary societies in the local church could place them at key positions on the highways approaching the city with, perhaps, a welcome to the church of that city. Eventually throughout the country a national program could be developed.
One of the reasons why we, as a denomination, have not used billboard advertising is that the price has been prohibitive for the production of the posters. The machinery for the regular lithographing process costs almost two hundred thousand dollars. This, added to the rental of billboards, which would be necessary in the use of the large 10 by 20 foot billboards, proved too huge an undertaking. But now with the "screen process," posters can be produced reasonably in any desired size from a window card to the largest-sized billboard. This process is employed by the leading sign shops of the country. The large 10 by 20 foot posters could probably be produced by this method for less than $5 each. The 5 by 10 foot posters, which are just a fourth the size of the other, and which every church and every conference and every evangelist could use to such good advantage, would cost approximately half what the larger posters cost, and possibly the price could be scaled to a lower rate as production increased.
For the smaller-sized poster, 5 by 10, it would not be necessary to have a rental agency erect and maintain a billboard. The average price of renting a billboard the country over is $7.50 a month. Standardized measurements with a blueprint could be made available, so that the local church could, with the men available, erect and maintain its own billboards, thus in many cases abolishing the rental expense. By this same process, window cards could be produced in color at a very nominal cost for placement throughout the cities holding evangelistic meetings. These colored placards are much more attractive than the usual two-tone announcements.
By way of summation I will tabulate some of the advantages of advertising our message on the highway posters of the country:
1. Attention arresting. Natural arousement of curiosity.
2. Twenty-four-hour duty. A workman in the day, a watchman in the night.
3. Reaches all classes,—rich, poor, educated, ignorant, professional men, sportsmen, society ladies, housewives, old folks, children; all nationalities, the religious, the irreligious, the believer, the infidel, the cultured, the inebriate.
4. Mu/turn in parvo—says much in little.
5. Gives wings to the message, thus helping cut short the work.
6. Places our denomination on the "ground floor," as a religious body, in the use of one of the greatest public-reaching mediums in the world.
7. Lifts the public concept of the Seventh-day Adventist doctrine.
8. Brings life to the local church by opening a new channel of missionary endeavor.
9. Unites the church in a common program of missionary advance by organizing the laymen in a specific national, yet local, plan to carry the gospel to their fellow men.
10. Fosters a wider circulation of our books, papers, and magazines, thus financially aiding our publishing houses and tract societies.
11. This agency could, in a unique sense, go "into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature," so "that he that runneth by may read."
West Palm Beach, Florida.
