DeSales Media
Generations of Faith was the Diocese of Brooklyn’s capital campaign, from 2015 through 2017, which raised $120M+ in pledges, $80M+ of which has been collected to date.
We at DeSales Media created the visual language of the campaign, from conception, logo, fonts, colors and iconography, through execution across many media and formats:
For the full announcement text from the Diocese of Brooklyn, click here. You can still visit the campaign’s webpage at:
“It’s Never Just a Selfie” launched Christmas 2014, encouraging people to return to Mass. The execution was part of a larger campaign for the Diocese of Brooklyn, inviting people of Brooklyn and Queens to find and visit their closest church.
Check out all of the different executions across the campaign at https://dioceseofbrooklyn.org/news/christmascampaign2014.
Watch the Colbert Report coverage for “The Original Hipster,” part of an Easter 2013 campaign called “All Faces. Everyday Understanding.” for the Diocese of Brooklyn. The goal was to increase Mass attendance, especially among Millenials.
Hipster Jesus reached 2.6M+ media impressions. You can read Bishop DiMarzio’s article about the campaign, or check out all media coverage from CNN, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CBS, TIME, and more here: https://dioceseofbrooklyn.org/all-faces-press.
In the spirit of diocesan collaboration, the Archdiocese of New York (from Ulster County to Staten Island), the Diocese of Brooklyn (the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens), and the Diocese of Rockville Centre (Nassau and Suffolk counties) participate in a joint Reconciliation Monday campaign most Lent and Advent seasons since 2009.
Reconciliation Monday, traditionally the Monday of the Lenten Holy Week, has become a focal point of engaging Catholics – practicing and non-practicing – in the Sacrament of Confession, shortly after Timothy Cardinal Dolan was installed as the premiere of the Archdiocese of New York. Nowadays, the Marketing Services team at DeSales Media and the Marketing department of the Archdiocese of New York trade off handling the creative concept and execution, as well as promotion distribution among the dioceses.
But the very first execution predates even the founding of DeSales: the 2009 campaign for confessions, still active at https://soulwow.com/.
Each season, the approach changes, but the invitation remains the same: come to confession this Lenten or Advent season, to prepare yourself fully to receive the True Presence of the Eucharist this coming Easter or Christmas.
Christmas 2017 was a banner season for the annual call to confession, as DeSales renewed its Put Him on Your List campaign–but this time included the participation of all eight dioceses from New York State. Check out the original song by Kei-Landa, accompanying music video and TV ad spot at www.PutHimOnYourList.org.
For CTN, igniting student enthusiasm for learning is the objective of special projects such as Mathbowl, Grammar/thon and Virtual Field Trips, each centered on a CTN digital service. Other projects such as Dial-A-Priest or the Great Diocesan Read Aloud connect students digitally with people outside of their schools for live, face to face chats.
Catholic Gatherings is a place for the faithful of the Diocese of Brooklyn to find out what’s going on in their area. The Diocese lists its Catholic events, and the site invites any parishioner to list an event happening in the Church anywhere in the area. All submissions are vetted before being posted, to ensure appropriateness.
Mere weeks after the devastating Hurricane Harvey caused in Houston and much of Texas, Louisiana, Belize, and Nicaragua, a deadly Category 5 hurricane landed on Puerto Rico, Dominica, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hurricane Maria is regarded as the worst natural disaster on record to affect those islands.
And so, once more, DeSales responded. This time, we worked with the relief organization, All Hands and Hearts, removing debris, fixing and laying tarps on damaged roofs, and performing minor demolition work.
The work made a difference for the hurricane victims, and it made an impact on the 15 DeSalers who got to take the opportunity and help out.
Watch the full coverage from NBC 4 NY here:
Above all else, our goal is to help Catholics put their faith into action and practice. Our Lenten campaign was designed to welcome Catholics back to church at this incredibly important time of solemn remembrance and joyous celebration. And why not engage when so many unchurched Catholics still receive their ashes on Ash Wednesday?
So, in addition to the Easter and Reconciliation Monday program we run each year, we also run a Lenten campaign for the Diocese of Brooklyn. In 2019, we designed an omnichannel campaign Walk with Him in the Desert executed at several levels. At the diocesan level was a print and digital awareness campaign, run in cooperation with neighboring dioceses. At the parish level, a toolkit of traditional and digital ads, social posts and announcements was developed to make it easy for our 180 parishes to join the campaign. And at the parishioner level, we provided a Lenten challenge calendar to support their individual walk through the desert–available in PDF/printout and Google Calendar.
This program was well received by pastors throughout the diocese, and was incorporated into more than half of all parishes’ Lenten programs. We’ve now established a strong library of free resources centrally designed and developed to build on in the future: https://desalesmedia.org/lenten-toolkit-2019/.
Monsignor Kieran Harrington is not just the chairman of DeSales Media, but also a great homilist. We felt that employees and parishioners alike would benefit from the preservation of his wise words. This podcast is a collection of Sunday homilies from the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Brooklyn, New York, where Monsignor Harrington is pastor.
Listen on PodBean, download on iTunes, or listen, download and subscribe wherever you download podcasts. https://foryouandforme.podbean.com/