New Scientology Commercial
Last night I was watching “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” which I had Tivo’d a few nights ago. The show is a reality series that is trying to find the lead for a revival of Sound of Music being produced by Andrew Lloyd Weber.
That’s not the interesting part (though the show is enjoyable and not all as mean-spirited as other reality series). What was interesting was the new commercial by Scientology. It is a montage of different people of all races and ethnicities, though mostly young people — early to mid-20s. The commercial ends with the tagline, “It’s life, and it’s yours” and directs viewers to go to their web site. (The commercial itself is not available online. You’ll have to find it on cable television and from what I can determine, mostly smaller cable networks like IFC and History Channel.)
When you go to scientology.org, you will find an array of videos (but not the commercial). There are two things I found particularly of interest here: 1) all the commercials were described as Public Service Announcements which would mean that the church would get free air time to play then, and 2) there was a section entitled “Way to Happiness.”
Way to Happiness contains some very highly produced and entertaining PSAs. (Again, I would share them with you, but the site only allows you to send them to a friend — and thus capture emails — but not to embed it on a blog.) Check out the first one called “Take Care of Yourself.” It’s one of the best produced ads I’ve seen. Note that the end of the spot takes you to another web site called The Way to Happiness. This site contains no information that would suggest that it is in any way tied to the Church of Scientology.
In sum, we have a new ad campaign targeting young people, a web site that does not signal its affiliation with the Church of Scientology, and a marketer that doesn’t want you to share videos except in a way in which they can capture your name and email. While the technology has changed, the game remains the same.
June 20th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
The ads and all the the videos are on the youtube Scientology channel for everyone to enjoy and share.
http://www.youtube.com/user/churchofscientology?blend=1&ob=4
June 21st, 2009 at 6:04 am
Thanks, Iggy. I didn’t realize that the Church had a site on YouTube.
Mara
June 27th, 2009 at 10:15 am
The “Life” commercial is epic, I watch it a lot.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
The commercial is really well done- inspiring, to say the very least. It’s relatable to every human being because we’re all living life, basically. With the amount of money the COS makes off of its victims, no wonder their ad campaigns are stellar.
August 10th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
[…] into it, assuming that the army or marines have really stepped their game up. Low and behold, Scientology is advertising now! And not doing such a bad job at it I might add. Apparently these spots have been running for at […]
August 17th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Scientology has been spending a lot of money on ads recently trying to repair their image after recent exposes by the St. Petersburg Times. Over a dozen former high level staffers are speaking out about the abuse people suffer at the hands of the cult leader David Miscavige. See truthrundown dot org to see the news.
August 18th, 2009 at 6:21 am
I was actually going to do a posting about the image problem. You might want to check out:
http://gawker.com/5328446/scientology-leader-david-miscavige-still-a-scary-insane-psychopath
November 14th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Nice commercial but it makes me ill that this religious cult calls itself the “Truth”. The founder, Mr. Hubbard was nothing but a flim flam artist with an interest in power and money. He abandoned his own family and dabbled in Satanism with Aleicster Crowley. It boggles the mind that people actually swallow the crud about aliens and the rest but desperate, searching people are gullible I guess. That’s what this commercial seeks to do, capitalize on the weak and lost. People are dazzled by celebrity also but fail to realize they aren’t exactly experts on life so why take their word as gospel? Unbelievable!
April 7th, 2010 at 2:44 am
I’ve heard both excellent and bad about Scientology. Allow me to believe some of every simply because I’ve seen it. But let’s talk about that. Compared to Christianity, Scientology is rather bland about controversy and terrible deeds. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the murder in the Cathars, the Salem witch trials. Heck, also the house arrest of Galileo was pretty awful. I am not going to dispute some of the bad points I’ve found out about Scientology which may or might not be true. All I can say is, I really hope the church cleans up its act. Any organization is made up of people, and some folks get carried away.
July 24th, 2010 at 7:35 am
Religion is free - scientology is neither.