SUBLIMINAL ADVERTISING

Subliminal Advertising

Subliminal Advertising

Introduction

Subliminal Advertising can be defined as practices that are purported to influence consumer behaviour by subconsciously altering preferences or attitudes toward consumer products'. 'Subliminal advertising is a technique of exposing consumers to product pictures, brand names, or other marketing stimuli without the consumers having conscious awareness. Once exposed to a subliminal marketing stimulus, the consumer is believed to decode the information and act upon it without being able to acknowledge a communication stimulus(JohnPhilip, 1999).

History of Subliminal Advertising

Subliminal advertising first appeared about fifty years ago, however, research into subliminal messaging began much earlier than that. Documented research began as early as 1863, with the findings of Suslowa, who determined that there was a real threshold between conscious and subliminal. He proved, through electrical impulses, that there was a point at which conscious became subliminal. This set the stage for others to explore the complexities of the human mind.

W.R. Dunham, MD, stirred the pot in 1894 with his work "The Science of Vital Force". He covered a lot of topics, including subliminal messaging, which he concluded was akin to mental telepathy. He was convinced that one person could silently communicate with another via their subliminal minds. Although considered wacky, he was laying the groundwork for subliminal advertising (Brierley, 2002).

Marketing guru James Vicary opened up the box in the 1950's, when he did some experimenting with subliminal messaging. He claimed to have inserted the phrases "Eat Popcorn, and Drink Coca-Cola" for brief milliseconds on a movie screen, while unsuspecting patrons watched the movie. He then claimed that sales of popcorn and coke increased drastically, due to his influence. Although, he refused to show his proof, and controlled experiments later, failed to show the same results (Merikle Daneman 1998).

In the 1970's, advertisers were fully aware that sex sells, and in a lame attempt at subliminal advertising, placed the word SEX in an ice cube in a Gilbey Gin ad. The idea behind this was, when people saw the word SEX, they would become aroused, and remember the name Gilbey.

The 90's saw another attempt at subliminal messaging, in the form of self-help tapes. This coincided with the rising popularity of the new-age movement, and all of the awareness associated with that. This proved to be a short-lived thing, and several studies failed to prove any worthiness to the tapes at all.

Reason for use

Subliminal advertising involves the use of messages sent to the subconscious in order to convince people about a particular product or service from the inner depths of their minds. The subconscious mind of a person is responsible for controlling every action and thought instigated by certain conditions. These thoughts and actions include memory extraction and storage as well as breathing and body temperature maintenance among others. The subconscious mind even controls most of the core traits possessed by your conscious mind.

These aspects all make subliminal advertising a force to reckon with when it comes to convincing people about a certain product or ...