Brooklyn Diocese helps locals with their Christmas to-do lists

Ad campaign reminds people to go to church during the holiday season

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Yesterday, the Diocese of Brooklyn launched its Christmas campaign called “Put Him on Your List,” an invitation to Catholics to make time in their busy schedules this month to go to church and celebrate the birth of Jesus.

“The message behind the campaign is a simple one but often forgotten: Giving gifts, going to parties, decorating, the list goes on… it’s all wonderful but it’s important to also remember the reason for the season, as the saying goes,” says Vito Formica, Interim Communications Director and Press Secretary for DeSales Media Group, which produced the campaign ad.

The campaign includes newspaper ads; a TV commercial; digital ads; radio spots recorded by Most Reverend Nicholas DiMarzio, Bishop of Brooklyn; and 110,000 button pins that will be available at the Diocese’s 186 parishes across Brooklyn and Queens for the rest of Advent.

Everybody can help spread the message. Wednesday, December 14, is officially “wear-your-pin day,” when people are invited to post pictures of themselves wearing their pins to their social media accounts with the hashtag #PutHimOnYourList. “The buttons are a fun way to get people involved in the campaign,” says Formica.

The Diocese of Brooklyn, which is the eighth largest diocese in the United States and the only entirely urban diocese in the nation, does a Christmas campaign every year, but this is the first campaign that will include a social media/TV commercial and the buttons.

Formica says the response has been very positive. “People say that they love the slogan. We distributed some pins already and I see everyone wearing them,” he says. “As for the commercial, it tells the story of a mom and daughter checking off their to-do list, but in the end it’s the little girl who reminds her mom that she forgot something important.”