From NCR:
Catholic prayer and meditation app is hoping to inspire more than a Hail Mary pass or a bended knee in the end zone during Super Bowl LVIII this Sunday, Feb. 11.
A 30-second commercial during the second quarter will feature a prayer led by Catholic actors Jonathan Roumie and Mark Wahlberg and will remind fans that Lent begins just days after the big game.
The commercial is for Hallow, a Chicago-based company co-founded in 2018 by three University of Notre Dame graduates. The Super Bowl spot is intended to encourage Chiefs and 49ers fans to take a break from the game and enjoy a moment of prayer on the Lord’s day — and will promote the app’s Lent prayer challenge, which begins Ash Wednesday, on Feb. 14.
“Our hope is that it reaches out to someone who maybe hasn’t prayed in a long time, that it might just allow someone somewhere an opportunity to let God into their hearts for the first time,” Hallow CEO Alex Jones told NCR in an email interview.
Jones declined to say how much the company is paying for the Super Bowl ad, but an average 30-second spot costs $7 million to reach the more than 100 million viewers of the championship game. CBS reportedly sold out the ad spots in a matter of weeks in November.
The Hallow ad will only run in 14 major markets, not every market, so it is “a fraction of the full national ad cost,” Jones said.
“If we can reach out to just one person like that, someone in a tough place, someone lost — and help them to begin a journey back to God, then yes, it will have been worth it,” Jones added.
The commercial begins with Wahlberg, who starred in the movie “Father Stu,” inviting viewers to join him in prayer, saying, “God, we take this moment just to give you thanks.”
Wahlberg and Roumie, who portrays Jesus in the TV series “The Chosen,” are “two of our closest and longest term partners,” Jones said. “We’ve seen their work change thousands of people’s lives — people who have fallen away for years, but see an invitation from Mark or Jonathan and are brought back into their faith for the first time.”
