Evangelical Environmental Network

What Would Jesus Drive

Getting the Best Mileage for “What Would Jesus Drive?”

Would Jesus drive a gas-guzzling SUV?

The Challenge: Environmentalists realized they had to preach beyond the green choir to get traction on global warming. That’s how “What Would Jesus Drive” was born.

Our Approach:

Fenton developed and executed a national media strategy for the campaign, spearheaded by the Evangelical Environmental Network, Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign, and National Religious Partnership for the Environment to reach primarily Christian audiences by reframing the debate over fuel-efficient cars as one of values, not just vehicles, and to pressure the Big Three automakers into building cleaner cars. Key elements of our strategy:

  • Produced a 30-second TV commercial with images of a traffic jam and a child struggling to breathe to run on Christian TV cable stations nationwide, coupled with a print ad for Christianity Today.
  • Held a press conference in Detroit featuring a convoy of nuns driving hybrid cars.
  • Organized sermons nationwide: We worked with NRPE to orchestrate and message simultaneous sermons focused on global warming in pulpits across America.
  • Rapid response: When Chevy came under fire for sponsoring a Christian rock concert, Fenton leveraged the controversy into advance buzz for “What Would Jesus Drive?”

Progress, Accelerated:

Thanks to the enormous response from reporters, we were able to leverage a modest media budget into $3-4 million’s worth of free media, including:

  • Approximately 1,900 articles in US newspapers across the country, including multiple stories in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and AP.
  • 500 television and radio stories.
  • Features on World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, Good Morning America and This Week with George Stephanopolous.
  • All-day coverage on CNN, and more people emailed the story from CNN’s home web page to friends on November 20 than any other story.
  • A mention in Jay Leno’s opening monologue on The Tonight Show.
  • Coverage in England, France, Germany, Spain and as far away as Australia and South Africa.