Subliminal Advertising: Hidden Conveyor of Messages
By Rafiq Ebrahim
Illinois
Advertising is an age-old concept of conveying messages to the people. In prehistoric days, people used to write with charcoal or chalk in their own languages the messages they wanted to propagate on the walls of caves or on tree trunks. While doing excavations in Pompeii, signs and evidence were found that services and goods were advertised as early as in 79 AD.
Later, Egyptians wrote messages and drew images on papyrus. When paper and printing press were invented, advertising became popular, first in Great Britain, then in other countries. Illustrated ads were placed in newspapers and magazines. Products like Pears soap, Woodbury’s Facial soap, Michelin Tires and Encyclopedia Britannica were among the first to advertise. Advertising companies like J. Walter Thomson, Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, Volney Palmer and N.W. Ayer were among the pioneers, responsible for creating ads and getting them placed in newspapers and magazines. J. Walter Thomson was however the first to expand internationally.
Today, we live in a world of advertising. Nothing sells without advertising; may it be a product or service. It is a well-known fact that you need to create an awareness of the product you want to sell, then promote it through means of advertising; hence the importance of advertising cannot be denied. That is why ad agencies are flourishing and their clients are spending millions of dollars to promote their products or services, but ads should be clever and to the point. Unfortunately, this fact is often ignored, and many advertisers rely on belittling the competitors’ products which results in big confusion in the minds of the consumers.
David Ogilvy, the guru of advertising, said that ‘a good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing the attention to itself.’. One wonders how many ads these days conform to this belief. The Chief Executive of one the agencies where I used to work way back in Pakistan had a motto framed behind his desk. It read: Advertising is supposed to be impactful and clever without being overpowering. In short, be subtle.
There are various outlets where the ads are placed. Generally, your product is promoted through TV, Radio and social media, newspapers, magazines, billboards and brochures to get consumers’ awareness and impulse to buy. This is the common practice, yet there is another means to advertise. It is called subliminal advertising, and it has been found that this means alone can soar the sale of your product. Only few clients and advertisers know and realize the positive effect such advertising would produce. Others simply do not believe in its efficacy and consider it a fallacy.
Subliminal Advertising
Subliminal advertising is described as the use of messages, images, logos and sounds to influence the subconscious mind.
A subliminal message passes below the normal perception. It might be inaudible to the conscious mind, but audible to the subconscious mind, because it is a brief flash of the product, escaping the conscious level of mind but getting stored in the unconscious mind, so that when a consumer goes to the market and sees the product along with other products, he is inclined to buy the product subliminally advertised. They are ‘hidden persuaders’ – as claimed by Vance Packard in his book, Hidden Persuaders which was published in 1957. There are various ways to do it.
Single Frame Effect:
This was often practiced in the days when movies were processed by 35 mm cameras. It involves the insertion of ‘hidden’ messages into movies or TV programs. The concept ‘moving pictures’ relies on persistence of vision to create movement in a series of images projected at 25 frames per second. A single frame of the ad is then inserted after every 25 frames on the editing table. The hidden command in a single frame flashes across the screen so quickly that it is not perceived consciously but is registered in the subconscious mind.
As mentioned in QUORA journal, an experiment was conducted by James Vicari, a marketing researcher and psychologist, in 1957 when a popular movie PICNIC was released. After every twenty- five frames the words, Hungry? Eat popcorns. Drink Coca-Cola were projected for 0.003 seconds. The sales of popcorn and Coke in that New Jersey theater increased by 57.8 percent and 18.1 percent respectively.
In the early seventies, we, at an advertising agency where I worked, made a similar experiment. In the cinema house where one of our client’s products was advertised subliminally through the screening of the movie, I stood near a concession stand. During the interval – in those days we had intervals of 10 to 15 minutes – a good number of moviegoers were seen to buy that soft drink.
You may think that this is a very easy and economical way of advertising. No, it is not. It took a series of meetings with the client to convince him about this method of promotion. The client eventually agreed, but still appeared doubtful. Then we had to approach the movie producer who was shooting a blockbuster movie with famous stars. After being assured that it would not make any difference in projection, and paying him the agreed amount, he consented. When the movie was shot and ready for editing, I went to see the editor to get the frames of our product inserted after every 25 frames of the movie. The editor simply shook his head and said that it was just an experience in futility, but he had to do it, because the producer had asked him to do that. It took him two weeks to complete the editing. I met him again and saw that one frame of the product was inserted after every 25 seconds in the master print of the movie. I was happy to learn that and took the editor, who had by now become a good friend, for a lunch at a Chinese restaurant on my expense account.
The client later reported that the sale of his soft drink had increased by thirty-five per cent. Those were the days when movies were shot by 35 mm cameras, and when advertisers didn’t even think whether such means of propagating messages were unethical or against public interest.
This form of subliminal advertising was gaining grounds and proving to be an effective vehicle for promoting products. It became a matter of concern for public relations officials and some advertising agencies, probably because they feared that budgets for regular advertising on TV and press would plummet, resulting in lesser profit. They argued that such a way of promotion was ineffective, counter-productive and unethical since it invaded the minds of the people without their consent. The other school of thoughts pleaded that it is not the only way that does that, there are many happenings in everyday life that do so, and on which we do not have any control.
Terry Lane in CHRON journal reported, ‘While the US Congress has never passed a law restricting subliminal advertising, government agencies have said that the practice is unfair and could result in enforcements, especially for broadcast stations.’ Countries like Australia, UK and Canada immediately put a ban on twenty-five frame ads, and other countries too had to stop such messages not because of the so-called unethical practice but because cinematography had advanced and films were no longer made through 35 mm cameras.
Other forms of subliminal advertising, like product-placement and hidden messages through logos were not affected and are very much in practice thoughout the world.
Product Placement
A highly popular technique is product placement. Here again you need a movie producer or a TV show producer. Subject to his consent and agreed payment, a can or a box of food products such as cereal, jam, jelly, butter or a soft drink is strategically placed on a dining table – or any other place - at a home. When the scene of a family dinner is shot, the product is placed on the table in such a manner that it is quite visible. It is flashed for only a few seconds, and the message is delivered.
Products or services are also promoted when a character drives a car and it passes through a street where there is a billboard or a store front where it is displayed. The camera briefly focuses on it while the car is passing by.
An unethical and detrimental trend is now prevalent in our movies and TV dramas and shows. The hero or an important character is shown smoking a cigarette or a cigar leisurely and enjoying the puffs, while at the bottom of the screen you read a sign ‘smoking is injurious to health’. This is a subliminal advertising for tobacco smoking, and one is sure that tobacco companies must be paying the producers or channels to promote this habit among viewers, especially youngsters. The tobacco companies must rely on such a means for advertising, because they are not allowed to advertise directly through electronic or print media or through billboards. Authorities should take note of this and take proper action to stop such a practice.
Hidden Messages through Logos
This is intelligent subliminal advertising. To mention a few, let us look at the logo of amazon.com. Did you find a hidden message? Observe carefully. There is a curved line connecting aand z, meaning that everything from A to Z is available on this online store.
Let’s look at the logo of TOSTITOS. We will find that in the middle, two friends are enjoying chips and salsa.
The logo of FedEx coveys speed in delivery through the white space, almost like an arrow.
TOBLERON chocolate’s logo takes you up an alpine peak, giving you the pleasure of coolness and fresh breath.
Subliminal Advertising in Politics
Politicians and party leaders soon found out that besides rhetoric and loud speeches in public, subliminal messages could be more effective; hence their agents point out in everyday conversation the wrong doings of other parties which subliminally influence the public mind.
Believe it or not, subliminal advertising has its effects, and is also practiced by ordinary people who convey their likings and desires to other people subliminally.
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