CREEPY BABY

CREEPY BABY

I know it’s a little early for Halloween, but this Swedish PR stunt from back in May is totally creepy. Any horror films featuring possessed children are always a little bit freaky, which worked to The Swedish Movie Festival’s advantage.

The Elmsta 3000 Horror Fest was struggling to gain RSVP’s to the event so took to the papers for some good old-fashioned PR. Instead of proposing a story idea to the press to get people a) talking and b) responding to the invite, the festival PR team chose a slightly more unique road.

Playing on the idea that so many people are a bit freaked out by a scary baby, a fake baptism announcement was printed in the Swedish papers. Some featured it on the front page, others nestled it within the usual baby and baptism announcements. “Devil child baptism” could have been easily missed but once noticed, had a huge impact and solved the RSVP issue almost straight away.

This was of course not your standard baptism announcement, a baby photo of ‘Lucy,’ (the female version of Lucifer), with 666 shaped ringlets in her hair, also featured the RSVP email which spelled ‘Satan’s Mother’ in reverse.

The subtle hints are what make this stunt so successful. The team really knew what they were doing, low cost for maximum result and outreach. Picked up by the media internationally, this advertisement also gained some valuable publicity for the festival. This little PR stunt cost the company just €60 and saw 81% of the invitees respond within 24 hours.

The devil child baptism is definitely the creepiest newspaper ad I’ve seen in a while. Fair play to Saatchi & Saatchi in Stockholm, the agency behind the stunt, for showing everyone just how effective the smallest PR stunts, using traditional media, can be.