Brief 5: Make Satanism fashionable
Nobody reads anymore
The Brief
“Don’t worry, you who have been fooled into believing the paper tiger displayed by today’s media; we Satanists aren’t after your children, for they are probably as hopelessly mediocre as their parents. But we are moving the world towards a state wherein the freeloaders will either work or starve, and the parasites will be removed to wither and die. So, you need only fear real Satanism if you are a criminal, a parasite, or a wastrel. Are you afraid?”
- Peter H. Gilmore
Consider the media stereotype of a Satanist, how can you alter the perception of the general public in accepting that there are stronger arguments within the practice than they originally thought? Appropriate information found on the Church of Satan into a set of educational publications. How will you re brand and stylise Satanism? How can you effectively put across the teachings in a neutral tone?
Concept
Based on the above quote, this brief exists to challenge public perception of the Satanist in a bid to make it fashionable. Not to be confused for an excercise in persuasion; it shouldn’t be interpreted at proselyutzing but simply shattering pre-conceptions. One should not feel forced into a singular belief system when there are so many interesting models to research into. It is far healthier to take a piece from all religious models to construct your own meaning rather than to feel the need to belong to one set. Make your own religion.
The promotion aspect would exist as a series of sequencial posters that start as just an image and gradually leak more information, so as to not shove the message into the face of the general public. The set is as follows; Cross, Mirror/Face image and the one on this board, eventually leading to a poster with more information where people can find out what the posters are for. The imagery used for the publications and promotional posters and merchandise have been carefully picked from popular social media sites, and I have made a conscious effort to note down specific trends of photographs that seem to get the most appreciation. There is a current trend that is apparent in design and general social media sites and that is layering of imagery. Different images are layered on top of each other to create a digital collage. Most popular themes for photographs being mundane objects such as mirrors or clouds, but more specifically women. I have experimented with layering some of the imagery I found and changing the colours so that I could achieve the same effect. I then blogged these on tumblr to see if they were effective and to see how many people would respond and reblog.
The final poster mentioned previously will direct people to certain websites that will carry the publications and the merchandise. The type of advertising used would be pinoneering advertising because I am trying to develop a primary demand. Because there are no other publications or merchandise educating people on Satanism available, there are no worries about a competitive product, and since it is in very early stages it is more about informing potential customers and introducing them to the idea. One of the online stores in which the customer can order the magazine is boysboysboys-shop.de, where, on purchase and receiving the publication(s) you get them packaged in a complimentary tote bag and with posters and a T-shirt.
Although my audience are only supposed to show a shallow concern to the subject matter; I still thought it important to actively get involved in knowing about the subject of Satanism and I made sure that for my personal use I have included a diverse range of information on the practice. The final main products consist of four books detailling aspects of the Satanist culture, from general beliefs and rules they live by, to feminism and views on taxes and politics. Mirroring the promotional techniques used for advertising, the main publication does not make any mention of Satanism for the first half, as I have meticulously gone through all of the information and reworded the sentences. It is not until you come to the main articles that you start to realise what the book is about. The cover of the book has also been abstracted so that it will be picked up on the basis of how it looks rather than its substance. Subsequent products include tote bags and t shirts, as the audience i am aiming the products at are the age group that ‘trendy’ abstract screen printed or otherwise merchandise is most popular. The more obscure the better. Again on the bags and shirt it is not obvious what they are about.
Audience
Promotional aspects for this project have to be subtle and clever. The audience has to be susceptible to trends and fads, and in the current climate there is a growing group of people aged 18-25 both male and female who are known as ‘Hipsters’. The irony of the behaviour of this group is that they seek acceptance through knowing. What commonly happens is that in actual fact they don’t generally know much at all. Through primary research, asking a few simple questions about noteable bands that are popular within this group of people, it is obvious that most have failed to seek out more information. In one instance one of the female members of the group who would be classed as part of my target audience contributed; ‘I’ve seen Of Montreal before, but they are too shoe gaze for me’ - this is proof of my theory, as the term ‘shoe gaze’ is in actual fact used to refer bands such as The Smiths, and does not relate to the band she was talking about. It is this misinformed group of people who I intend to prey on.
Deliverables
* A set of informative publications
* A set of matching posters
* Photoshopped elements of a strong campaign
* A mocked up online distributor
