"Severed Up" Psychic Advertising (1978)

In the late 1970s the police were struggling to solve several brutal crimes.

They turned to two Scarfolk psychics, Terry and Jasmine Oiltoad, a married couple who also ran a thriving advertising agency with a unique, supernatural selling point: Terry and Jasmine could psychically channel the victims of crimes, but only, strangely, if product placement was incorporated into their trances.

Deep in a clairvoyant daze, they would strategise national marketing campaigns, design advertising mock-ups for print, write product slogans, and even design storyboards for TV commercials. Psychic clues would somehow filter through Terry and Jasmine's subconscious into the promotional material.

Only when the campaigns were officially launched could Terry and Jasmine snap out of their trances and furnish the police with tangible details, such as the precise location of a murder or kidnap victim.

The advertisements themselves were littered with cryptic clues, as can be seen from the magazine ad below for Severed Up soft drinks. The razor logo and copy in this psychic-advertisement eventually led to the apprehension of a criminal known as the "Fizzy Razorblade Killer," though her real name was Helen Cradle, a 7 year old pupil from Scarfolk Infant School, who was also a known embezzler and quite good at geography and maths.

Psychic advertising was outlawed in 1979 when three major corporations were found to have ordered several murders in an effort to be included in popular psychic advertising campaigns.