What is Subliminal Advertising?

Subliminal advertising uses a psychological concept known as “Subliminal perception”, typically defined as a result of stimulation too weak to reach conscious awareness, but that may nevertheless affect behaviour. The term Subliminal is from the German for “below the threshold”. (Mullen and Johnson).

During my readings I found the following example of subliminal advertising:

New Woman magazine created a system called “subliminal synergism,” which it claimed made more readers look at its ads. Placing an ad’s dominant colors behind the headline of an adjacent editorial page would prompt readers to move their eyes from the article to the ad, New Woman told potential advertisers. (McLaren)

Subliminal Advertising works! Well… maybe NOT!

There have been many studies performed by the psychologists to determine whether subliminal stimuli can influence people. Some content that it works and some don’t believe that such a small stimulus can affect the behaviour of people when there are many stronger stimuli in the surroundings (Solomon, Zaichkowsky and Polegato).

One of the oldest claims of successful results include that of James Vicary, who cited studies showing that subliminal advertising had increased popcorn sales by precisely 57.5 percent, and Coca-Cola sales by 18.1 percent when he used his projectors to flash the phrases “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” repeatedly during the movie times (McLaren). However when the tests were conducted to for verification, his claims proved to be false.

An interesting incident mentioned by Wilson Bryan Key, as being the inspiration for his third book on subliminal perception called “Clam Plate Orgy” was as follows:

After a University of California lecture in San Diego, several students and I dined in a nearby Howard Johnson’s restaurant. Our heated talk, which had begun at the university, continued as we squeezed ourselves into the booth. As we chatted, several students casually glanced through menus. When the waitress finally materialized, four out of the six of us, including myself, ordered clam plates. Shortly after the waitress had taken the order and disappeared, I incredulously recalled that since childhood I have loathed clams in any form…. I was extremely annoyed with myself for ordering something I really didn’t want to eat.

Key then suggested to the group that someone had “put something into our heads” to eat clams. Could it be the background music? They listened but couldn’t detect anything. After more searching, one student pointed to the place mats on the table. Turning his attention to the image, a plate of fried clams, Key employed an “effective technique of media analysis”: he compared the media representation with the actual clams. After ruminating over the camera angle and a lengthy list of discrepancies, his analysis ultimately boiled down to this:

The place mat illustration is not a photographic representation of actual clams, of course, but an airbrush painting. It includes nine caricatured human figures as well as a donkey astride a human figure. The donkey seems to be licking the stomach of the figure upon whose lightly shaded face is a long mustache. To the left of the prostrate face-up male figure appears a female figure with a highly piled coiffure. A head can be seen between her legs. Who would believe a sexual orgy, oral sex, and bestiality could be so deftly incorporated into an innocent restaurant placemat? (McLaren)

Such bizarre explanations of the effects of subliminal persuasion were given not only by Key but by many other people on the internet where it is easy to find pictures and videos of advertisements that people claim to be using subliminal persuasion for purposes for selling or grabbing attention. However, to me these explanations make no sense what so ever. For example in these pictures, would the effect of the subliminal imagery affect my behaviour?

Nonetheless, there is some research that suggests that it can be influential. One such research was done by Zajonc and his colleagues. In a typical study the subjects were exposed to stimuli for a few milliseconds. In recognition tasks later, they were unable to recognize the fact that they were ever exposed to those stimuli. However, even though they could not recognize the stimuli (e.g. mages or sounds); they claimed to have some sort of favourable feelings towards them as compared to the others. Such findings suggest the possibility of influencing attitudes without conscious cognitive activity (Zajonc and Markus).

Others contend that these studies have been performed in controlled environments, and in a real world scenario where there are numerous other stimuli, there is no way any stimuli of such week strength could affect behaviour. And to justify this, they say that there has been no practical proof of any effect of subliminal advertising on the increase in sales (or any other objectives) of a product.

Out of the two arguments that people have made over the years I would like to believe that Subliminal Persuasion might work, may be not in the bizarre way that Key suggests, but in other ways that make humans take certain decisions on a subconscious level.

To elaborate my view, I would like to mention the results of two studies, which were performed to assess whether subliminal priming of a brand name of a drink can affect people’s choices for the primed brand and whether this effect is moderated by individual’s feelings of thirst. Both experiments demonstrated that exposing individuals subliminally to the brand name of a drink increases the probability that they would choose this drink, provided they are thirsty, but would have no significant effect on those who are not thirsty. (Stroebe, Wolfgang and Karremans)

This discussion of the human psychology leads us to a philosophical conundrum:

Subliminal Advertising is EVIL!… or is it?

Since 1950, in much of the periodical literature, till now, there is a rising tide of protest against industry’s use of subliminal projection (written messages which are quickly flashed during videos) and other subliminal persuasion techniques such as Backmasking (spoken messages which are recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward). Many journals and publications in newspapers tend to express a fear that subliminal perception mechanisms will be employed for the ends of mass political subversion, brainwashing, and other forms of immorality and vulgarity.

People have lobbied the government to ban the practise altogether. The arguments for this were – that if the techniques work, then the consumers are being fooled and if it doesn’t work then the advertisers paying to employ them are being fooled; thus in both cases the use of such techniques should be banned.

However, much like any other technological advancement such as the nuclear energy, these techniques were not only being used by companies for their benefits, but also by others for public good or personal good.

Radio station WCCO in Minneapolis ran “phantom” messages warning of “slippery roads” during icy weather, “mail cards now” at Christmas, and “Ike Tonight” when President Eisenhower was scheduled to speak. Precon Process and Equipment, another company that sprang up to hawk subliminal services, told the Wall Street Journal that it was seeking financial backing to study whether or not subconscious projection could teach kids their multiplication tables. The U.S. Army also jumped on the bandwagon, directing its Human Factors Research Division to examine if the process could be used for education.

Self-help subliminals were voluntarily embraced. Consumers wanted to be subconsciously influenced in a manner they considered desirable. It just so happened that the qualities consumers desired were those promoted by the market. “Prosperity/Living the Dream” was typical, inspiring listeners with messages like “I attract money,” and “I deserve the good life.”  (McLaren)

There were times, in the 1950’s when the government banned the use of such techniques in advertising. However, in the 1970’s, Bryan Key’s observations of the use of this technique in images, text, audios, videos and other modes of advertising were mentioned in his four books on the same topic. He was one of the most well known people who opposed the use of these techniques in advertising. However, his views were well opposed by many critiques. One in particular: “In fact, his examples appear to be little more than constructions and projections of his own fantasies” (Vokey), was based on the fact that most of his examples suggested the occurrence of male and female genitalia, phallic symbols, and the word “sex”.

However, my view on the ethical side of subliminal advertising is simple. I believe, if subliminal persuasion is unethical then, so is saying – “Our pudding tastes good!” The reason is that, the taste of the pudding would depend on the person who eats it. It is after eating some might call it an understatement and some might call it an absolute lie!

Going back to the psychology, subliminal persuasion depends on the person’s threshold level, his emotional state and his bodily needs. If a person has a natural urge to drink something and a subliminal message makes him choose Coke rather than Pepsi; it is the same as the person choosing Pepsi because the retailer is only selling Pepsi in his store. So, if retailer contracts are legal, then so should be subliminal messaging.

However, as far as the use of such techniques goes – I would suggest against it. The reason might not be philosophical or ethical. The reason is: “Why bother?”

• There are wide individual differences in threshold levels. In order for a message to avoid conscious detection by consumers who have a low threshold, it would have to be so weak that it would not reach those who have a high threshold.
• Advertisers lack control over consumers’ distance and position from a screen. In a movie theatre for example only a small portion of the audience would be in the exact position to be exposed to the subliminal message.
• The consumer must be paying absolute attention to the stimulus, if not, they might miss it altogether.
• Even if the desired effect is induced, who knows what effect it would have? For example, it might increase the level of thirst for a consumer rather than the thirst for their product and the consumers might start buying the competitors’ products. (Solomon, Zaichkowsky and Polegato)

Clearly, when there are better ways to affect behaviour why not use them!

Bibliography:

• McLaren, Carrie. Subliminal Seduction. 20 November 2009 <http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/electronic-publications/stay-free/archives/22/subliminal-advertising.html>.
• Mullen, Brian and Graig Johnson. The Psychology of Consumer Behavior. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990.
• Solomon, Michael R., Judith L. Zaichkowsky and Rosemary Polegato. Consumer Behavior: Buying, having, and being. Pearson Prentice Hall, n.d.
• Stroebe, et al. “Beyond Vicary’s fantasies: The impact of subliminal priming and brand choice.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2006).
• Vokey, John R. Subliminal Messages.
• Zajonc, Robert B. and Hazel Markus. “Affective and Cognitive factors in Preferences.” Journal of Consumer Research (1982).