Well, HBO did it. In Sunday’s Big Love episode, a 10-minute segment showed a mock Mormon Temple and Endowment Ceremony. I didn’t watch it, but one of my trusted friends did and relayed the events to me. From what he said, it was fairly accurate. Of course the one BIG mistake in BIG LOVE is that a polygamist was allowed entrance into a Mormon Temple. Anyone who knows anything about Mormonism is aware of its no tolerance policy to polygamy. Polygamists are not Mormons, and only Mormons (and only a small segment of Mormons) are allowed Temple entrance.

What was interesting, though was the “buzz” it generated for the Mormon Church. As many of you know, I manage the public advertising programs and web properties of the Mormon Church. When we became aware of this series, it was recognized as an opportunity for us to tell the truth about Mormonism and Temples. Immediately I started a sponsored search campaign on YouTube, which sent visitors to our MormonTV channel where visitors could watch videos about temples, polygamy, and learn for themselves, from the official source, what Mormons believe.  I also ran a Google sponsored search campaign that sent searchers to the Church’s website Mormon.org, where they could learn our beliefs about temples, polygamy, modern-day prophets, and other Mormon doctrines.

The campaigns were wildly successful. We turned our latest YouTube video titled “Why Mormons Build Temples” into the 4th most watched video on YouTube over the weekend, and MormonTV became the 10th fastest growing channel by generating 1,000s of new subscribers. The weekend Google sponsored search campaign was just as successful, generating 1,000s of new visitors to Mormon.org.

The negative impact of Big Love will never materialize, and thanks to HBO, 1,000s of people have been able to learn more about the Mormons, from the Mormons. All that’s left to say is, “Thank you, Tom Hanks and HBO!”