An Exorcism Ad Strategy

Where's Linda Blair when you need her?

It turns out that exorcism is booming around the world, U.S. included, and the staunchly Roman Catholic nation of Poland is about to launch the world's first magazine devoted exclusively to the subject of exorcism - Egzorcysta.

The magazine's founder, Father Aleksander Posacki, was quoted in the Huffington Post this week making a statement that, I'll be honest, made me rethink that whole fall-of-communism strategy: "Capitalism creates more opportunities to do business in the area of the occult," he said.

Exorcism as a business? I'd never thought of it that way. Having done business in Poland myself, albeit selling harmless boxes of laundry detergent, bleach and bottles of shampoo, my business side was tantalized by the ad campaign possibilities for Egzorcysta.
I started to draft a creative brief to make a blowout TV commercial for the magazine, maybe one that could run during the next big soccer tournament in Poland...

TV Commercial Creative Brief

Client: Egzorcysta magazine

Unique Selling Proposition:  Egzorcysta is the ONLY publication devoted to chasing out the devil!

Benefits: Egzorcysta will give readers the tools to identify a devil presence and the resources to cure the victim, PLUS exciting profiles of demonologists, fortune tellers, and priest figures, AS WELL AS tough investigative reports on the terrible goings-on of the occult and, by extension, Capitalism.

Target Reader Insights: Target readers are basically freaking out about this.

Mandatory Executional Elements: Face-ravaged head shots of the possessed, projectile vomiting, crosses in flames, priest with hands in prayer position

Optional Executional Elements: Any kind of levitation, Madonna in concert

But seriously, when you run across an article like this, don't miss a chance to skim some of the reader comments. The best one was from a reader named "Bipolar Man" (oh my...) who seemed to have confused the word "exorcism" with one sounding very similar. He wrote: "It's not just exorcism. You have to eat right as well. There is no one answer to getting fit."

See, this is precisely why we need a magazine like Egzorcysta. I do feel better. And you?