The Effects of Subliminal Advertising

856 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Essay on the effect of subliminal advertising

Missing Example Figures

The Effects of Subliminal Advertising

The power of subliminal advertising in effecting consumers is still unproven. The concept of subliminal advertising is based on a "threshold". "This [is] thought to be a fixed point below which awareness does not extend." (Sutherland: p.30) If a word is flashed on a television screen for 50 milliseconds a person would not be conscious of it. If the time of the exposure is increased the word crosses the threshold and a person becomes consciously aware of the word. This process varies within the same person from day to day. For example, if a person is hungry while watching television, advertisements of food will be noticed more than if that same person just ate. Sometimes we are more alert than at other times. The effects of being tired, using drugs or alcohol can also vary when a stimulus is registered.

This is an example of a subliminal advertisement. In the bottom of the glass it says "U BUY". This message subliminally tells the consumer to buy their certain product, hoping for their sales to increase.

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.

In the 21st century, subliminal messages are still thought to be us...

... middle of paper ...

...inal Advertising) There are many positive aspects to some subliminal techniques. An example of this is tapes which aid people to loose weight or stop smoking. In turn, they have become a popular self-help fad.

Subliminal advertising, wether it works or not, will no doubt be utilized indefinately by companies to advertise their products.

Works Cited

Elliston, Jon. March 25, 2001. Hidden Persuasion?. [on-line], xx. Available:

www.parascope.com/articles/03971/sublim1.htm.

Elliston, Jon. March 25, 2001. Subliminal Survives. [on-line], xx. Available:

www.parascope.com/articles/0497/sublim6.htm

No Author. March 14, 2001. Subliminal Advertising. [on-line], xx. Available:

www.snopes2.com/business/hidden/popcorn.html.

Sutherland, Max. 1993. Advertising and the Mind of the Consumer. Australia: Allen and

Unwin Pty Ltd.

Show More
Related

  • The Super Bowl Ads Can Change Public View

    1174 Words  | 3 Pages

    Super Bowl is one of the most watched American television broadcast. In 2011 Super Bowl become the most watched television program in the history with an average audience of 111 million. While Super Bowl get the attention of the audience and keep increased the viewership, the top company found their way to make commercial for their brand and products, and broadcast the commercial during the Super Bowl games domestically. Super Bowl commercial became a culture among the people. Most of the people even don’t watch the games but the commercial during the games. The top brand companies also start spending big chunk of money to make the best attractive commercial for their audience. Among those best polished commercial was the Chrysler automobile corporation commercial, which changed the public view of Chrysler, and did a great work by using pathos appeal to attract audience by stimulating their emotions.

    Read More

  • Subliminal Advertising Essay

    3030 Words  | 7 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Cargo-Cult Science of Subliminal Persuasion

    751 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the introduction of “The Cargo-Cult Science of Subliminal Persuasion” written by Anthony R. Pratkanis, summarizes the infamous subliminal persuasion experiment conducted by James Vicary in 1957. Vicary, a market researcher, administered an investigation involving popcorn, Coca Cola products and the big silver screen. During showings of the 1955 film Picnic, Vicary rigged the film projector to flash the phrases “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coke” repeatedly throughout the movie so quickly that it went unnoticed for quite a while. After running this experiment for six weeks, Vicary claimed that the sales of Coke products increased by 18.1% and those of popcorn by 57.8%. The media of the day spread the story like wildfire and scientists scrambled to replicate the procedure.

    Read More

  • Robert Scholes on Video Texts - Comparison

    2393 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Shock Advertising: The Themes Of Texting And Driving

    1839 Words  | 4 Pages

    We always hear about people who die while texting and driving. Be that as it may, have you ever found the opportunity to be in their shoes of an existence passing circumstance? Shock advertising gives viewers the perception to see what they weren’t able to see because they were never in that sort of situation. Generally when you go to the motion pictures, you are open to knowing the actuality you will be seeing well known on-screen characters in trailers for up and coming motion pictures. You will likewise see a commercial about quieting your cellphones or turning them off, don 't bother others while the motion picture is playing. What would happen if all of that was to change if the commercial was about texting while driving and you were the

    Read More

  • Subliminal Messages In Rock Music

    300 Words  | 1 Pages

    A group of researchers were asked by a radio station to conduct research about subliminal messages. Some people believe that rock music has subliminal messages and that those messages had and evil content that lead listener to lose morality and misbehaviour conducts. The way how this messages work in the music industry is using the technique backmasking. During they work they found a distinction between willing acceptance of backmasking and the media mishandling of the issue. The connection with subliminal messages in media is informative. Even though subliminal messages were found. They were not able to demonstrates the effect of them on the individuals behaviour. Brian Wilson Key, claims that advertising uses subliminal messages to influence

    Read More

  • An Axe Excite: Even Angels Will Fall?

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Subliminal Perception

    1181 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many people have heard of "subliminal" messages that are not consciously perceived by a subject but nonetheless influence his or her behavior. The concept first became publicized in the 1950s, when the advertiser James Vicary claimed that flashing the words "Drink Popcorn" and "Drink Coke" between frames in a movie theater increased Coke sales by 18.1% and popcorn sales by 57.7%. This caused a storm of controversy, although Vicary later admitted that this "study" was a hoax.(1)Many studies carried out in laboratory conditions do show that "subliminal" inputs can be perceived by the nervous system without the awareness of the conscious "I-function". Inputs perceived "subliminally" have also been shown to influence behavior to some extent, in some instances more than supraliminal inputs. These effects, however, are for the most part limited in magnitude and duration.

    Read More

  • Cryptic Communication

    788 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sometimes the world of advertisements has a little more than meets the eye. Indirect and subliminal communication is a common weapon to be used and exploited by designers. All it takes is a keen eye and a willingness to further examine the advertisement for this sort of trickery. From community to children these are just some of the vast array of techniques that can be employed in advertisement. Being a part of the Norco College handbook is a major ordeal that if underestimated could have dire consequences. One should approach all advertisements with caution no matter how seemingly innocent.

    Read More

  • Advertising: Modern Day Brainwashing

    3188 Words  | 7 Pages

    Winder, Ted. “Subliminal Influence at the Supermarket: Part One." A New Take. N.p., 4 Jan. 2013. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.

    Read More

  • Advertisements

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Advertising and Its Impact on Children

    1554 Words  | 4 Pages

    magazine ads, child are hit by one subliminal message after another. They are shown how this

    Read More

  • Effects Of Advertising On Children

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    The advertising is a method of communication that has a big purpose which is to persuade the audience to buy their products .Today, advertising is very remarkable and has an essential role in community.as it tends to impact on children specially. In addition, nowadays, the children are watching too much television and use the social media than previous years. Therefore, they see more advertising. Besides, although there are some good impacts of advertising on young minds, the researchers shown that, the advertising can also have several bad influences on children, particularly, if parents are incautious and do not increase the awareness of their children about the importance of money.

    Read More

  • The Power of Advertising

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    Commercials works through the human emotions and vanity and it appeals toward the psychologically domain turning into a temptation for weak mind people. For instance, if a person is at home watching T.V., very comfortable and suddenly, a commercial promoting any kind of food and drink comes up, that person will be hungry and thirsty in a couple of minutes. The advertising influenced his mind, provoking an involuntary reaction to do what the commercial induced him to do.

    Read More

  • Misleading Advertisements Analysis

    1124 Words  | 3 Pages

    By being a consumer in a world of diverse products and services, it has given us a wide range of choices. A product may be produced by different companies and has the same function, but it is presented to the consumers in different forms. In order to differ from each other, companies use the help of advertising to present its product in a better way than their competitors’. However, advertising the product is becoming more crucial than the product itself. Companies are focusing more on making the brand more popular, rather than actually improving the product that they offer. By turning the advertisement competition into a war between companies, they mislead buyers by hyperbolizing their products positive features, thus hiding the negative ones. Companies forget about the effect they have on the consumers. Consumers should be aware of the manipulative tricks that advertising uses like subliminal messages and brain seduction in order to not be misled into buying something that they do not really require. By knowing how to manipulate the audience and consumers’ brain, companies use tactical methods in order to persuade specific customers to buy specific products or services. Other examples of techniques they use are techniques like puffery which are suggestive claims about a product, using subliminal messages and transferring information indirectly, as well as by targeting a specific group of people, creating a slogan or a mascot and by using sexy models with perfect bodies, advertising tries to manipulate and persuade consumers into buying the product they are offering.

    Read More

More about The Effects of Subliminal Advertising

Open Document