"Bounce Back!" Best promotional campaign ever?

When the recent “and I’m a Mormon” ad campaign got some national media attention it reminded me of  a phenomenal promotional campaign the Church produced in the mid-eighties. 1985 was a fantastic year in the music world. At the top of the charts Wham!’s “Careless Whisper” beat out Phil Collins’s confusingly awesome “Sussudio” and a-ha’s “Take On Me” (best music video ever). The Church PR folks must have realized that radical synthesized music was where it was at; “Axel F” was getting regular rotation on radio stations across the United States (and possibly Canada).

Enter “Bounce Back!” The twenty-minute cassette is a “collection of thoughts, ideas and music” to help people “deal with disappointment, overcome problems and bounce back from the hard times.” It’s pretty snappy and hip, and possibly on the verge of re-emerging as a premiere missionary tool.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting each of the ten “Ideas” from the tape to put a little bounce back in the Bloggernacle.

Here’s the Intro:

And to show how well the tape fits into the musical milieu outlined above, I’m skipping ahead to Idea #4,  “Give of Yourself.” Yes, my mom did use this track in her aerobics class:

I am 99% certain the music was written by Michael McLean. I am positive that at least the track for Idea 10 was. The rest of the tracks are on the way. Enjoy!