No matter what your religious denomination, beliefs or faith may be; the latest campaign from Australia’s Bible Society is an impressive, integrated exercise in Social Marketing.

What started out in 2002, has travelled across Australia, through Adelaide, Canberra, Tasmania, and is currently underway in Western Australia and across New South Wales for a six week period from September 15, 2009.

According to the campaign website: “Jesus. All about life is about presenting the words of Jesus in a culturally appropriate way, the media is the marketplace of the 21st Century…The media is the catalyst for interest, but each local church involved is the delivery point of the program.”

It’s a different approach for ‘the Church’. Even the campaign website acknowledges that connecting with the community via mainstream media is a new direction, saying that to date “…the church has not used the media well.”

Perhaps we are the target audience, but everywhere we go, we see this campaign.

It has an impressive dissemination strategy, including mainstream TV ads, Billboards, bus shelters, and has a banner on almost every church you can see – talk about utilising prime real estate in a cost effective way… so cost effective that local churches pay to disseminate the campaign materials! According to the campaign website, “For just $100 registration fee, payable on-line at www.jesusallaboutlife.com.au your local church can be a part of this campaign.”

The television advertisement is certainly easy for anyone to engage with – there’s hardly even a mention of religion.

The microsite is clever – appealing to Gen Y, encouraging user-generated content, and looks a bit like a myspace page.

The campaign has certainly attracted all different types of attention, including editorial discussion by key outlets like the Australian and on ABC Radio, blogs, endorsements from well-known people, and even critical review and parody websites.

Who sums it up best? In an interview with the UK’s Daily Mail one of the campaign spokespeople said: ‘Christian or not, it’s a passionate topic. It’s a huge campaign in its own right and hard to ignore.”

We agree. Amen to good Social Marketing.

The UK Department of Health is launching the first stage of a £10m drive to tackle binge drinking with a TV campaign about the units of alcohol in different drinks.

Different TV ads in the campaign, which break tonight, will target male and female drinkers.

The public health minister, Dawn Primarolo, said that the “Know Your Limits” campaign was the biggest awareness drive the DoH has launched to date.

The TV ads, created by ad agency VCCP, will be backed by a radio, billboard and press campaign that will show the number of units in individual drinks.

These ads show close-ups of drinks including lager, wine and Guinness as well as different measures, including large and small glasses and full bottles of wine.

The campaign has been launched following research by YouGov that showed that 82% of drinkers claim to know what a unit of alcohol is.

However, the study found that 77% did not know how many units are in a typical large glass of wine.

“Glass sizes have grown larger and the strength of many wines and beers has increased,” said Primarolo.

“This campaign is all about helping people understand how many units are in their favourite drinks, and helping them to keep an eye on their intake for the good of their long-term health.”

The daily alcohol intake guideline for women is two to three units, while that for men is three to four.

YouGov’s poll found that 64% of women knew the recommended limit, but only half of men did.

Unit awareness appears to get worse with age, according to the poll.

While 32% of drinkers aged 18 to 24 knew the amount of units in a large glass of wine, only 18% of over-55s did.

The DoH’s binge drinking campaign has a £6m budget for 2008 and 2009. It will be followed by a £4m campaign from the Home Office next month.