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The influence of subliminal advertisements
The influence of media advertisement on consumer's buying behavior
Negative and positive impact of mass media on consumers
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Media these days, whether print or electronic, is being used by the general population as a tool to stay informed. Whether someone wants to get up to date with the latest events around the world or just wants to find out if their favorite team has won, media is the way to go. We trust the media to keep the whole world updated and connected. But, is the media exploiting our blind trust by subconsciously manipulating us through subliminal advertising? Firstly, what is subliminal advertising? It is a technique in which the consumer is exposed to product or brand advertising such as pictures or songs related to the product without the consumer being consciously aware of it. This may include ads during the airing of different sports matches or that one catchy commercial song that gets embedded into our minds. The consumer is then expected to decode the information subconsciously without ever realising the source of the information. This influences the consumer’s behaviour. This research essay will mainly focus on the different methods and strategies which are used by the media in order to persuade the consumers to buy a certain product or avail a specific service. The research will then help to determine if these methods can be categorised as mind control tools by weighing their effects on the consumer’s buying patterns and subconscious.
The earliest example of subliminal advertising is believed to be dated back to 1957 because it was the first time that something like this had come to the peoples’ attention. A movie theater in Fort Lee, New Jersey experimented with their audience by persuading them to eat popcorn and drink Coke. David Ogilvy, the founder of the famous international advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather, writes in his bo...
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...iarty. 1992. Advertising Principles and Practice. 2nd edition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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Hawkins, Del. 1970. The Effects of Subliminal Stimulation on Drive Level and Brand Preference. Journal of Marketing Research, 7: 322–326.
Cooper, Joel and G. Cooper. 2002. Subliminal Motivation: A Story Revisited. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 32 (11): 2213–2227.
Bullock, August. 2004a. The Secret Sales Pitch: An Overview of Subliminal Advertising. San Jose, CA: Norwich.
DeFleur, Melvin L. and Robert M. Petranoff. 1959. A Televised Test of Subliminal Persuasion. Public Opinion Quarterly, 23 (2): 168–180.
Advertising (marketing) in America is long past its zenith. There may have been a time when people actually paid attention to all of the flash, the glitz, and the hype, but most consumers (especially those in Generation X) are savvy and somewhat skeptical. The public is less impressed and views these types of marketing attempts as desperate, and even pathetic. Marlboro Friday (977) may stand out as a monumental day in the minds of advertisers, but there is another moment that stands out in the minds of consumers; the night a woman disrobed during half-time show at the Super Bowl. It was as if time stood still as a nation witnessed advertising shorn of its pretense. This one event exposed the true state of marketing in America. It seems every attempt to hoodwink and capture the attention of the population has already been tried; there is nowhere new to go. Stooping to nudity to try and capture the attention of the public confirms what the consumer already knows; it doesn’t matter how firms try and “clothe” their products; underneath they are all the same.
For over fifty years, companies have utilized subliminal messaging in print, television, and radio advertisements to manipulate consumers into purchasing certain products and services. This form of advertising infringes upon American citizens first amendment rights which, as defined by Wooley vs. Maynard, extend to protect a person's freedom of thought and speech. Such communication influences individual's behavior without his or her knowledge, and removes his or her ability to actively make certain decisions. The practice of subliminal messaging is defined by the Federal Communication Commission as" a technique of projecting information below the viewing audience's threshold of sensation or awareness." In visual advertising, specifically, a message lasting only a few milliseconds is flashed on the TV screen. Theoretically, such a message could be absorbed by the viewer without him or her realizing it ("Subliminal Messages"). This practice was first brought to the attention of the public in the late 1950s when James Vicary, a movie theatre owner and marketing researcher, announced that he had developed special equipment which would allow the advertising industry to utilize subliminal projection ("The Legal Status of Subliminal Communication in America"). He cited a success story at one of his privately owned movie theatres where he flashed phrases like "Eat Popcorn" and "Drink Coca-Cola" at 0.0005 seconds during movies. Using this method, he claimed to have raised his Coca cola sales by 18% and popcorn sales by 58% ("The Roots of Subliminal Perception"). Although Vicary attempted to pass off his discovery as harmless advertising technique, the general public became extremely offended and fearful of this attack on their subcons...
The paranoia of subliminal advertising unsurprisingly begins in the 1950s at the origin of the television age, although the first claims about its use involve the broadcast of subliminal messages at movie theaters. The book, The Hidden Persuaders, written by, Vance Packard is responsible for bringing subliminal advertising to the public’s attention in 1957.The book mentions experiments undertaken by an advertising executive, James Vicary. Vicary apparently tested subliminal advertising in theaters by flashing the messages “ Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coke” on the screen for a fraction of a second. In conclusion to the experiment, Vicary claimed an 18 percent increase in sales of Coke and a 58 percent rise for popcorn, which led to the acceptance of the reality of the effectiveness of subliminal advertising, however, leading to a fear that th...
According to Robert Scholes, author of On Reading a Video Text, commercials aired on television hold a dynamic power over human beings on a subconscious level. He believes that through the use of specific tools, commercials can hold the minds of an audience captive, and can control their abilities to think rationally. Visual fascination, one of the tools Scholes believes captures the minds of viewers, can take a simple video, and through the use of editing and special effects, turn it into a powerful scene which one simply cannot take his or her eyes from. Narrativity is yet another way Scholes feels commercials can take control of the thoughts of a person sitting in front of the television. Through the use of specific words, sounds, accompanying statements and or music, a television commercial can hold a viewer’s mind within its grasp, just long enough to confuse someone into buying a product for the wrong reason. The most significant power over the population held by television commercials is that of cultural reinforcement, as Scholes calls it. By offering a human relation throughout itself, a commercial can link with the masses as though it’s speaking to the individual viewer on an equal level. A commercial In his essay, Scholes analyzes a Budweiser commercial in an effort to prove his statements about the aforementioned tools.
This book has opened a whole new perspective on advertising and the reasons we buy things and regret them later. Thinking that I have the urge for a McDonalds hamburger may feel real, or it might just be an elaborate, expensive advertising technique used to manipulate my buying behavior.
The notion of subliminal advertising grew within the 1950's. A man named James Vicary who inserted subliminal messages in movies "sparked the first large-scale subliminal scare, and his projections into the subconscious, though never documented or replicated, are still frequently cited as "evidence" of the insidious power of subliminals." (Subliminal Survives) Although sales of cola increased 18% and sales pf popcorn increased 58%, Vicary later downplayed the effectiveness of subliminal advertising due to the small amount of research he had collected from it.
An average American is said to be exposed to about five thousand advertisements in one day. Through these ads, producers can connect with consumers at a manipulative level. That instead of just simply displaying their product to attract the consumers’ interest different motifs and sale pitches are used to manipulate customers into buying their product.
Winder, Ted. “Subliminal Influence at the Supermarket: Part One." A New Take. N.p., 4 Jan. 2013. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
D. W. Hamlyn - author. Publisher: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Place of Publication: Sensation and Perception: A History of the Philosophy of Perception. Contributors: London. Publication Year: 1961. Page Number: iii.
We see advertisements all around us. They are on television, in magazines, on the Internet, and plastered up on large billboards everywhere. Ads are nothing new. Many individuals have noticed them all of their lives and have just come to accept them. Advertisers use many subliminal techniques to get the advertisements to work on consumers. Many people don’t realize how effective ads really are. One example is an advertisement for High Definition Television from Samsung. It appears in an issue of Entertainment Weekly, a very popular magazine concerning movies, music, books, and other various media. The magazine would appeal to almost anyone, from a fifteen-year-old movie addict to a sixty-five-year-old soap opera lover. Therefore the ad for the Samsung television will interest a wide array of people. This ad contains many attracting features and uses its words cunningly in order to make its product sound much more exciting and much better than any television would ever be.
Children’s exposure to subliminal messages occurs daily and throughout their life. The media conditions and manipulates the developing mind. Without the parents’ permission or even their knowledge, the media makes lifestyle decisions for our children. Advertising Moguls, without regard for our childre...
Subliminal advertisement has been around long before the 21st century. Subliminal messages are said to be “below the threshold of conscious perception” (Credo Reference, 2011). It was first pioneered by Dr. James Vicary, in the 19th century, when he conducted an experiment that subliminally engaged the viewers to “eat popcorn” and “drink Coca-Cola” while in the movie theatre (Broyles, 2006). The experiment attempted to prove that subliminal messages are a technique that is effective. In his studies, Vicary reported that the experiment was successful. His data showed that the experiment “increased soda sales at the theater by 18 percent and popcorn by 58 percent.” These results are truly an impressive increase but they were fab...
Nowadays, advertisements are everywhere embedded in our daily life. They are powerful resources that inform people the latest news about a particular product or brand in many different ways. Most of the people are being able to get more information and detail of a product from media, radio stations, newspapers and internet. Even though advertising is a big informative source, it also can be considered as a marketing tool to control the mind and desires of the consumers to manipulate and persuade them to buy things they do not need.
magazine ads, child are hit by one subliminal message after another. They are shown how this
Goodman (1997) asserts the average young person views more than 3000 ads per day on television (TV), on the Internet, on billboards, and in magazines. At this rate, teenagers are exposed to a vast range of advertisements that create awareness and knowledge of products and services in the market. Moreover, the objective of advertisements is to increase sales and grow profits. Though advertisers are not psychologists, they are aware of strategic techniques that will cause teenagers to be convinced to buy their product. For instance, the method of using product placement and celebrity endorsement is common, and in spite of this, advertisements tend to be more memorable namely due to popularity. According to the traditional hierarchy-of-effects models of advertising state that advertising exposure leads to cognitions, such as memory about the advertisement, the brand; which in turn leads to attitudes, i.e. Product liking and attitude toward purchase; which in the end leads to behaviors, like buying the advertised product