God is dead, buy our products. That's the message from Sony and Ikea. In Rome, Sony ran an ad portraying a young man wearing a crown of thorns along with the phrase "10 years of passion". Ikea ran an ad in Italy that said "There's no religion anymore" informing would be customers that their stores are open on Sunday because of the country's dwindling church attendance.

What amazes me is both companies had to do research to deem the ads effective. If Sony and Ikea knew the ads would be offensive or ineffective, they would not run them. Conversely, if they believed the ads would be effective and relate to people, they would invest money in the ads, and they did! As Christians we need to have an even greater pulse on the state of society and seek them even more than these ad companies are doing. Now that I think of it, I cannot ever recall an ad drawing attention to our fallen sin nature and needing a Savior. I have certainly seen ads glorifying the sin nature and encouraging it. (Maybe all my Photoshop and art friends can make an effective ad calling attention to our need of a Savior...)