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Yesterday, while sitting at the student center re-reading Micheal Simmon’s, The Student Success Manifesto, a 30-something year old Korean man randomly decided to sit down in the chair across from me at my table. I look up from my book without tilting my head up with a confused look on my face. I’ve approached people before, but never with the directness this guy just has. He starts rambling about something about how his English isn’t very good and how he is looking for a student to edit his paper. He sees me still with my confused look and says “I’m sorry, can I get your name?” and we shake. He says that he needs someone to edit his “paper.” I figure it couldn’t take more than a few minutes and college essays are hard enough as it is, especially for international students. After I start reading it I notice the mass amount of religious material and Biblical quotes in the “paper.” I start to question whether this is for real or not. He further explains that it is a prayer that he has written for his Bible study class. The “prayer” kept mentioning how he is “thankful for the opportunity to bring 12 RU students to the light of the Bible.” I tell him that I’m not a religious person and that if he expects to sell me anything he is wasting his time. He insists that he is not and just needs someone to edit his paper. I continue on editing the very few mistakes that there were with a couple stops in between reiterating my position as the paper continues to delve in religious material and seems to be aimed at changing one’s mind. After I finish editing the piece, he begins to ask me questions about my faith and starts talking about Jesus and how if one believes in him that they are granted eternity, whereas if they do not they will perish. I feel extremely angry at this point after realizing that my hunch was in fact true. This man used the pawn of having me edit his “paper” as a bridge to try and convert me. However, I then took a look at it from a different point of view. I really wanted to give this person what he had coming for using such a deceitful tactic. I then realized though that this was just another form of marketing. He was trying to sell me a religion just like Clorox is trying to sell me detergent. Albeit, it was ironically not the most ethical ways of doing so, it comes down to making the sale or not and this was his tactic. Religion, when it comes down to it, is probably the best marketed product on the planet, right?
Popularity: 1% [?]
Those type of religious fanatics annoy the hell out me. I steer clear of them and if they get in my way, I run them over.
That’s unbelievable lol! The cheek (and the pure smartness of that guy!)
That’s not good. If this happened on campus you should report it proper authorities. University campuses are for studying, not for spreading your religion.
Religion may not be the *best* marketed product…but it certainly is the *most* marketed product.
1. I want to apologize on behalf of … well, all Christians who think that sucks. Terrible, indeed. My personal belief is that Christians (or anyone from any religion) shouldn’t be marketing their/our ideas. It comes down to the product, not the marketing. If it works, and works well, then be a part of it. The only way people should be a part of it is if they find the relationships built (both human to human and human to God) worthwhile. Marketing should have nothing to do with it.
2. Golbguru – University campuses are for free speech, free ideas, etc. They are where ideas are spread and talked about – religion, politics, sex, all included. Reporting it to any authorities is ridiculous, unless you think that only the “authorities” direct your studying. Thinking for yourself means not always studying what you’ve been told to study. People talk about religious people being intolerant, and while that’s true for a generalized subset of the religious population, intolerance for religious ideas is definitely shown by your comment.
Nate, I agree that marketing should have nothing to do with religion and if a certain belief works then it should be spread upon it working and via “social proof” as opposed to “direct marketing.” As for Golbguru’s comments, I think he has a point and on second thought, I think I should have taken some action in order to prevent the deceitful kind of marketing he was doing because he was NOT being upfront about it. I should have at least asked to see his student ID to see whether he was really a student or not (didn’t look like it). I see your point in free speech about religion, but this person was basically advertising a religion on campus. That’s not the same thing as discussing points of religion with your peers, which I think is more in line with the freedom of speech that we have. This is not to say that one cannot advertise their religion…they can do so, but technically no marketing of any sort is allowed in the student center (I’ve tried with Walamu) and you get kicked out for that. That includes religion, in my opinion.
For the sake of anonymity, I shouldn’t have disclosed what particular religion he was pushing. It is important to note that this kind of behavior is committed by missionaries from ALL kinds of different religions. It really is a shame, just because I don’t think anyone should be pushed onto something as delicate as religion. Nonetheless, this happens everywhere and is not happening in just one particular religion.
Hopefully, we can all learn something from this guy in terms of how to market our products/services (i.e., don’t leverage the community, leverage the influential people in your community that you KNOW like your product/service).
Actually if your university is government funded anyone has the right to use it’s facilities and say what they want. It is a space for free speech.
Unless you attend a private university student ID would not have mattered.
However I agree that deceitful marketing shouldn’t be used by anyone and most of all a religion. That defeats the whole purpose of the religion to be honest and good.
Rohail, this story was very interesting. The ingenuity brought upon the missionary alone is eye opening. However, it IS deceitful, and as you noted, probably not the “most ethical” way to market something. It makes for a great story, especially with how you introduce it without giving away the premise.