Print or Packaging design for Alpha USA

Alpha USA

We provide Christianity 101 courses to churches who offer it to those in their communities exploring faith.

We require a concept design for our upcoming conference in 2012 with a main theme around the word 'MOBILIZE'. An 8.5x11 print ad with images that are of print quality is what I would like. We can develop all the other concepts from here e.g. web banners, postcards, etc.

The 'MOBILIZE' theme is meant to speak to the church Pastor or Leader, who is the primary target audience for our conferences. As a bit of background, many churches all over America are struggling. Their membership is in decline (i.e. they aren't attracting new members), their existing members are un-engaged (i.e. go to church but not involved in the church e.g. volunteer work, not involved in community work and outreach, not giving financially back to the church, not in small groups with fellow members, etc).

Adopting the Alpha course program in their church is one option to help to turn this decline around - new members join after coming to faith on a course, existing members get excited about the new life in the church and join in leadership and volunteering, and get involved in community work and outreach, etc.

In addition, think of a church today as being stuck, on its land, within its four walls or physical structure, when churches are meant to be mobile, involved in the community, doing things for the poor, inviting the community through its doors, etc (i.e. the church is not the building but its members and their actions). Pastors are frustrated about this. They want to re-energize their congregation to 'get in the game' again, the way the church used to be. They want to 'MOBILIZE' their church and their members. They want to get back on the move and make an impact in their communities for the good.

The ad needs to:
1. Jump out from a pile of direct mail.
2. The words on it need to tug at the emotions of a Pastor or church leader, remind them how frustrated they are, and motivate them to want to re-inject energy, desire, life back into the church.
3. To lead the Pastor to want to check out the Alpha course and find out more about how to attend the conference.

Although we don't have any specific demographics targeted, we would like to attract younger Pastors or Pastors with younger members. Our ads are typically edgy, cutting edge, and provocative (i.e. to the point that it makes the viewer think about it...but tasteful).

Our logo can be found on our website in the footer uner Downloads. Also, our typical design template can be found in one of the mock design slides (the b&w marathon runners w/ the blue border).