A group of 150 churches, called the Love Singapore Movement, commissioned the ads. The group wanted to change God's image from "a killjoy schoolmaster" to "someone you wouldn't mind putting on the guest list of your dinner party." Created by international advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, the campaign revolves around quotes from an irreverent and witty God: "I was thinking of making the world black and white. Then I thought . . . naaah," and "What do I have to do to get your attention? Take an ad out in the paper?"

"To use industry jargon, we wanted to reposition God in people's minds," explains Eugene Cheong, who was in charge of the project at O&M. It was no stretch for Cheong, a lifelong Christian who wrote all the copy for the campaign: "Let's just say that I knew the product very well," he says. "After almost 20 years in the business, finally, there was a product I could believe in."

Some of the copy started off as quotes from lowly mortals. David Ogilvy, who is treated like a demigod in the agency he founded, famously said, "I hate rules." Cheong put those words in God's mouth: "I hate rules. That's why I only made 10 of them." Other spots feature a more benevolent God: "Bring your umbrella, I might water the plants today." While others, like subway waiting areas plastered with "I'm here" in big bold letters, portray Him as playful.

Gone are the heavenly lights, bearded men in sandals and angels with halos. Instead, the visuals are starkly modern; minimalist black posters with white lettering, vibrant close-ups and slow-motion camera shots.

"Hey, they made me sit up and notice," says Rob Martin Murphy, executive creative director for advertising agency Euro RSCG in Singapore. "The government's ban just means that the ads provoked a response--that's half the battle in advertising."

That may have been just the problem--the Love Singapore churches were too successful in making God omnipresent in the media. They had budgeted about S$2 million (US$1.1 million) to place 17 commercials on TV and 24 different ads in the newspapers, which would reach 100 percent of the city-state's population within three months. The ads had been approved by the state-run Television Corporation of Singapore and Singapore Press Holdings, which controls most of the TV stations and newspapers in the city-state. But before they had aired for a week, they were pulled by the authorities.

A multi-cultural country of Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and Hindus, Singapore's government is hyper-sensitive about religious issues. "Religious advertisements are not allowed on television as Singapore is a multi-racial society and such advertising would be seen to be proselytizing," said Felicia Toh, spokeswoman for the Singapore Broadcasting Authority, in response to questions about the God campaign.

With traditional media channels blocked off, O&M has had to be creative. It has painted buses with the ads, printed T-shirts, distributed over a million postcards and plans to publish a book of quotes from the campaign. But more than anything, the agency has gone hi-tech, with a cutting-edge Web site (www.god.org.sg) for the ads.

Even more innovative is a short-messaging-system, or SMS push, that will blitz messages from God to mobile-phone users who subscribe to the service. Those users can then forward the notes to friends in an example of viral marketing. The messages will be much more timely and focused than the print ads. For example, "Are you coming over to my place later?" which will be sent out on Sunday mornings. "The point of this campaign is to make God seem approachable, close to you," says Graham Kelly, regional creative director for Ogilvy Interactive, the on-line advertising arm of O&M. Ironically, through these interactive channels, the campaign may reach more people more effectively than they could have through traditional media.