Spiritual content material has lengthy been a mainstay on social media, the place Christian influencers can garner hundreds of thousands of views. And far of the net response to Hallow’s TikTok adverts has been optimistic. Nonetheless, Alex Jones, the chief government of Hallow, mentioned he was conscious that some individuals had been stunned to come upon the corporate’s adverts on social media.
“We don’t set any refined or particular concentrating on,” wrote Mr. Jones, who’s to not be confused with the conspiracy theorist of the identical identify who ran the Infowars web site. “Every platform has its personal algorithm for figuring out its feed. We all know that there are some feedback from people who’re stunned to see these posts of their feed. We actually don’t wish to power something on anybody.”
Jessi Hood, a library circulation coordinator in Roanoke, Va., who doesn’t contemplate herself spiritual, was one other one that stumbled on Mr. Wahlberg and Hallow on her For You web page on TikTok. “I sort of roll my eyes half the time after I see him,” Ms. Hood, 24, mentioned, noting the actor’s prison previous. (At 16, Mr. Wahlberg was convicted of assaulting a Vietnamese man and served 45 days in jail.)
Ms. Hood downloaded Hallow out of curiosity. “My first thought was identical to, Oh, that’s bizarre. That is an app that’s for prayers, and it’s important to pay for it?” she mentioned. She posted just a few screenshots from Hallow on X after which deleted it from her telephone.
In his electronic mail, Mr. Jones, the Hallow government, offered nameless quotations from purported Hallow customers glowing in regards to the platform. For others who discover Hallow adverts on social media, there’s much less curiosity: “Opened tiktok to a video of Mark Wahlberg asking me to wish with him … and I can’t consider a factor I wish to do much less, really,” Brandi Howard, 32, posted on X.
However on condition that Mr. Schneider visited the Hallow web site and that Ms. Hood downloaded the app (solely to delete it), the TikTok marketing campaign appears to be piquing curiosity.