c. 2006 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Auto maker DaimlerChrysler is finding redemption _ and a valuable new venue for showcasing its vehicles _ in the African-American megachurch.
Four of the nation’s largest black megachurches are breaking new ground in the worlds of marketing and religion by hosting test drives for Chrysler vehicles this fall. So far, about 500 churchgoers have driven the new Aspen SUV, the new Sebring sedan or the Chrysler 300 on sacred ground that’s not known for peddling big-ticket merchandise.
For Chrysler, observers say, the experimental test drives mark a coup on two levels: the carmaker has overcome a centuries-old taboo on marketing goods for profit in sacred spaces, and also gained entry into influential black church circles less than four years after Chicago-area black pastors launched a boycott alleging the company discriminated against black customers.
Chrysler has achieved its de facto redemption in part by sponsoring singer Patti LaBelle’s 14-city gospel concert tour, which includes partnerships with local churches with memberships that range between 3,000 to 27,000 members. For each test drive, Chrysler gives the driver a free concert ticket and donates $5 to the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
The campaign helps Chrysler reach its target demographic more directly than through advertising alone, according to David Rooney, director of Chrysler brand marketing at DaimlerChrysler.
“We try to go out to our best prospects in their environment, where they’re already engaged … and in the African-American community, one of the opportunities is the church,” Rooney says. Churches provide access, he says, to “opinion leaders who are involved, upscale, new-car-buying types of people.”
Twenty years ago, such an initiative would have likely been a non-starter due to black pastors’ skeptical views of corporate America, said Tulane University sociologist Shayne Lee. But now, Chrysler is riding a “revolutionary” shift in attitudes, especially in prosperous congregations, where Lee spots an emerging “commercialization of black religion.”
Test drives at congregations are “just symbolic of greater changes taking place in the black church,” Lee says. “The black church under (Martin Luther) King had sort of prophetic response to corporate America, to raise challenges and attack systemic racism.
“Now we have this new black church that is very conservative, very bourgeois, telling people: `Hey, corporate America is your friend. God wants you to make money, so you need to know how this world works.”’ Corporate sponsorships of religious activities dovetail with a “prosperity gospel” from the pulpit, he says, to make for “a perfect marriage.”
Chrysler isn’t alone in courting black customers through churches. For years, McDonald’s and Coca Cola have given away free samples of new products at the 25,000-member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga. Credit card companies have offered free financial counseling seminars at black churches in Michigan and other states. Earlier this year, discount retailer Target won kudos from Christian Cultural Center (CCC) in Brooklyn by donating 2,000 backpacks for its outreach ministry to children in a nearby housing project.
Even so, Chrysler walks a new fine line when using church property to showcase its goods, according to Christophe Van den Bulte, associate professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
When a company tries “to enroll people’s support for a commercial product in a setting that is sacred, that is not supposed to be spoiled by anything else, that can backfire,” says Van den Bulte.
“What Chrysler does is somewhat clever in the sense that they sponsor gospel (music), which is part of the religious community coming together … It’s all about, can you (as a company) somehow make yourself part of the texture of the social fabric in the particular community? And it seems to me Chrysler may actually have found a way to do that.”
Back in 2003, Chicago-area pastors backed Gerald Gorman, a car dealer in Midlothian, Ill., who accused the corporation of lending policies that denied financing to black customers. DaimlerChrysler denied any wrongdoing; in September, a federal judge threw out Gorman’s suit against the company. Last year, DaimlerChrysler settled a class-action suit brought on behalf of black customers.
Organizers never officially ended the boycott, but it has lost steam since 2005. This year, DaimlerChrysler spokesman James Kenyon said, the company met no resistance to conducting test drives on church property because “the churches don’t have a problem with this relationship.”
For some churches, that seems to be true.
“They (at Chrysler) are giving money to a worthy cause” in their cancer donations, says Erik Burton, spokesman for New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, which is hosting test drives in December. “We are not parading cars through the sanctuary or having cars parked on stage. None of that’s going to go on.”
Jericho City of Praise in Landover, Md. drew about 150 people to its test drive in late November. But not all churches involved in the Chrysler-sponsored concert tour have been quite so comfortable with all the corporate coziness.
When Chrysler approached CCC in Brooklyn, for instance, the church refused to allow test drives on its property and instead “had to gently but firmly redirect them” onto nearby city streets, according to spokeswoman Theresa O’Neal. The concern: test drives on the property would feed an appearance of being “in it for the money,” according to Senior Pastor A.R. Bernard.
“If we come across as too commercial, that can diminish the spiritual authority that we have,” Bernard says. CCC hosted the Chrysler-sponsored LaBelle concert in November and allowed the church to be mentioned in promotions for the test drives.
Bernard said he’s cautious not to let the church become a marketplace, but nonetheless welcomes certain new relationships with business because they present “an opportunity to work with corporations on our terms.”
Meanwhile, purists leery of corporate ties to the church haven’t given up. Lance Davis, a Chicago pastor who helped launch the Chrysler boycott, says he’s twice refused offers from local Chrysler dealers who would like to underwrite his ministries. And even though many of his fellow clergy (including former boycotters) urge him now to accept the company’s generosity, as they have, he wishes others would say “no” more often _ starting with the test drives.
To showcase cars at churches, Davis says, “is a total disregard for the true function of the church,” which is “to promote the gospel, to make sure families are counseled and to make sure individuals are visited when they’re suffering or hospitalized.”
KRE/CM END MacDONALD
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