Heavenly Marketing

Talking about desperate measures...when I passed Vienna's Augustiner church last week I noticed this interesting poster obviously intended to attract the younger faithful:

"Gemma Kirche"? I have to admit, it's rather...unusual. For those among you who are less aquainted with Austrian dialect and popular culture - it is en vogue among (Viennese) kids of a certain social stratum and background to utterly disregard prepositions and therefore only to say "Gemma (=gehen wir=let's go)+location" when they want to encourage their peers to go somewhere. Example: "Gemma Kino" (let's go to the cinema) or, very popular, "Gemma Lugner" (let's go to Lugner City shopping mall).

"Gemma Kirche" sort of openly acknowledges that this omission of prepositions has become firmly anchored in the vernacular.

Whether it achieves the purpose of luring the kids away from their usual hangouts and enticing them to swap the mall for the pew remains to be seen.