Subliminal messaging
(PBL session 10, closing trigger 9. 26.11.2014)Subliminal = affecting someone's mind without them being aware of it.
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| Marlboro ad (2010) |
These are forms of messages which escape our conscious perception, but reach through to the brain unconsciously. The most normal presentations of subliminal messages are visually or by audio.
The first known subliminal advertising is from 1957 when phrases "Eat popcorn" and "Drink Coca-Cola" were shown in a movie. James Vicary, a market researcher came up with an idea to insert the words to a movie and show them only for a single frame, just enough for the subconscious to regognise it, but too short for a person to be aware of it. It was said that the ads increased Coke sales by 18,1 % and popcorn sales by 57,8 %. The results and the whole campaign later turned out to be false, but in some more recent experiments there are results of subliminal messages affecting people's behaviour in smaller ways.
The author of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty, has spoken against subliminal messages in movies after the movie adaption of his book was accused of containing subliminal messaging. He said, "There are no subliminal messages. If you can see it, it's not subliminal."
An example of a subliminal message in an advertisement is an AT&T ad where an unsuspecting viewer thinks to be just watching a sequence of random scenes when actually all the scenes are references to the bars showing the internet or cellphone service strenght in the given location.
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| AT&T advertisement (2011) |
A study from 2005 conducted by researchers in Utrecht University, demonstrated how subliminal messages affect people. The participants were subliminally primed with the words Lipton Ice were more likely to choose a Lipton Ice beverage when given a choice between two options. The effect only happened when the participants were already thirsty, though.
In some countries, like the UK and Australia, subliminal advertising is completely banned. In the United States there's no specific laws addressing subliminal advertisins, but the advertising and broadcasting regulatory agencies are the ones ones dealing with the topic and its impact on the public. There are some court rulings on subliminal advertisement cases, but because the nature of subliminal messaging is subconcious, where the viewer is not aware of receiving the message, it's extremely difficult to spot them.
Subliminal messaging on the long run allegedly helps boost learning capacity and has a positive effect on the memory. It is a "good" way for companies to advertise their products/brand without being too direct and "pushy" about it.
There's no direct "bad" side to using subliminal advertising as part of your marketing strategy, however, the morality of it is questionable. Is it ethically right to indirectly manipulate one's mind to your liking?
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