The more extended version of the story takes many more pages than a blog post can satisfy. But the process to get the NIV 2011 on the ground was one of the most challenging marketing challenges I had ever faced. It started with an assignment. The assignment was to take all the marketing might we could muster and position the TNIV as the flagship Bible translation for Zondervan. It was a futile exercise requiring quite a bit of personal management capital to reset the objective. The new assignment was to figure out how to mothball the TNIV and get the NIV back to its original charter as an evergreen translation.
The challenge was immense. In 1997 the translators of the NIV promised no revisions to the NIV 1984 edition. Their promise was a reaction to the controversy which erupted after it was revealed that the translators intended to publish a “gender accurate” revision of the NIV. The backlash was so severe that the plans were scrapped, and the translators promised to freeze the NIV in its current 1984 form.
To manage this perfect storm, I identified two specialists for short-term stints to help Zondervan navigate the tumultuous waters. First, I tapped on the shoulder of the best PR crisis manager I know, Jason Vines. Jason and I had worked together at Nissan, and he had recently finished navigating the Ford Explorer roll-over crisis because of the Firestone tires. He was a crisis manager, and we had a crisis to manage. To complement the crisis guru, we need an innovation nut. One of our marketing managers came in with an article showcasing the innovation that came out of IDEO; the world’s best innovation lab. When we explained the problem to the IDEO management team, they let us know that they only knew of one Christian within their company, and he lived in the UK. After several phone calls explaining the issue, Neil Martin joined the team. Jason and Neil crafted the plan which we executed.
The most significant part of their plan was to apologize to the industry about the 1997 commitment to never change the NIV 1984 edition. The commitment was off strategy. The original NIV strategy was to have an evergreen translation that would keep up with trends in the English language. If you want more nitty-gritty details, you can read Jason’s book, What Would Jesus Drive. It is a colorful exposé of the challenges Jason faced over the years as a crisis manager in several industries.
Spoiler alert. The answer to Jason’s question is Jesus would drive all of the crisis managers and PR spin-doctors to tell the truth, and that’s just what we did.
