Amanda Taylor from Missouri, USA, received strange letters that turned out to be promotional materials for the movie «Omen: The Beginning». For the last few years, before getting involved in politics and running for the state House of Representatives from the Democratic Party, Amanda was a movie blogger — she received both promotional materials from movie studios and letters about local issues.
In late March, Taylor opened one of the envelopes and found something that looked like a child’s drawing, which scared her. On the paper were crudely drawn four women with painted faces standing around a little girl who was floating in the air and had an anxious look on her face. Amanda Taylor’s name was also scrawled on the envelope in sharp handwriting. The letter struck her as more than just creepy: to someone running for public office in a state that bans abortion with limited exceptions, it might seem like a threat.
«I immediately thought: «Oh, it has something to do with abortion». The day before I had received something from a pro-life organization, so I said to myself: «Okay, I’m starting to get all the propaganda materials», — says Amanda.
Unsure what to make of the mysterious letter, which arrived with no return address and an out-of-state postmark, Taylor sent it to her campaign adviser, who quickly called the police. Republican officials in Missouri have long enacted a near-total ban on abortion — no exceptions in cases of rape or incest, only in some emergency cases. Taylor is one of those campaigning and collecting signatures to revisit the issue.
«She called me and said: «Put it in a plastic bag, wash your hands, the police are on their way», — Amanda explains that the paper could have been contaminated with something poisonous.
It was only a few weeks later that the sender of the letter was identified. It was Marshall Weinbaum, a senior PR specialist at the Walt Disney Studio PR department. The letter turned out to be a promotional material for the movie «Omen: The Beginning of», the latest installment in the long-running horror franchise. Weinbaum is credited with the invention of this marketing trick. The creepy children’s drawings appear in the new film, which is the backstory of the original 1976 film «Omen».
After the first anonymous letter, Weinbaum ordered the team working on the horror film’s publicity to send potential critics another equally disturbing image. It showed little girls looking at a sixth girl flying in the sky.
However, the following email was sent along with all the standard information usually found in a press release, including the film’s title, synopsis, and hashtags the studio would like to use when discussing the film on social media. After Amanda Taylor realized that there was no danger, she was humorous about the situation and says it was the best publicity stunt she’s ever seen.
Source: Business Insider