Our church has done billboard advertising before, and I don't see how it is different from putting a motto or a few clever words on a marquee; except it will cost more, unless 'connections' take care of that. Most of them I have seen try to appeal to the youth, telling about "The Rock," our large youth meeting area with a picture of a band, or giving some numbers, like "Come and join over 400 involved young people..." I think we have also had some about sermon series and upcoming special programs. But I can see how a person might read about new equipment or carpeting and think "That's all they have to say?"
Nevertheless, churches seemed to have followed the example of lawyers and doctors. For decades, maybe centuries, the nature of the professions made it canonically 'unethical' to advertise, although it was not illegal. Since the 70's that has obviously changed. However, I never thought it was the ethics of not advertising professional services of such necessity and confidentiality as much as it was a means of the older and longer established docs and attorneys to keep patients/clients coming in by the free advertising of reputation and word-of-mouth. Those older ones, after all, mostly controlled the bar associations and medical boards who insisted on such "ethics;" witht that touch of hypocrisy for their own benefit. Still, in the minds of many, law firms, medical clinics, and churches represent something 'beyond' the elaborations, the exaggerations, and the incantations we associate with advertising. Churches, after all, are also involved with confidential help and teaching that must be done in a very specific way to benefit the individual. That churches have also thrown off some voluntary restraint in that way is unsurprising.
