III. Claims about the power of subliminal advertising
1.
The originator of the term “subliminal advertising” – James Vicary
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 <26>.
What
is commonly referred to as subliminal advertising has been the focus of a
great deal of attention for more than three decades. The term “subthreshold
effects”, first popularized by Packard in 1957, preceded the popular notion
of “ subliminal advertising” whose originator is James Vicary. <21>.
Perhaps the most widely known claim concerning the power of subliminal
advertising was made in 1957 by James Vicary, a market researcher. He claimed
that over a six-week period, 45,699 patrons at a movie theater in Fort Lee,
New Jersey were shown two advertising messages, Eat Popcorn and Drink Coca-Cola,
while they watched the film Picnic. According to Vicary, a message was flashed
for 3/1000 of a second once every five seconds. The duration of the messages
was so short that they were never consciously perceived. Despite the fact
that the customers were not aware of perceiving the message, Vicary claimed
that over the six-week period the sales of popcorn rose 57% and the sales
of Coca-Cola rose 18.1%. Vicary’s claims are often accepted as established
facts. However, Vicary never released a detailed description of his study
and there has never been any independent evidence to support his claims. Also,
in an interview with Advertising Age in 1962, Vicary stated that the original
study was a fabrication. The weight of the evidence suggests that it was indeed
a fabrication <13>.
2. The second widespread worry about subliminal advertising
Wilson Bryan Key
More recently, Key has claimed that hidden or embedded messages are widespread and effective. In the 1970s, Wilson Bryan Key wrote such books as Subliminal Seduction and Media Sexploitation in which he claimed subliminal sexual symbols or objects are often used to entice consumers to buy and use various products and services. One of Key’s most famous claims is that the word sex was often embedded in products and advertisements. For example, he claimed that the word sex was printed on Ritz crackers and was embedded in the ice cubes of the drink shown in a well-known ad for Gilbey’s Gin. According to Key, despite the fact the embedded words are not consciously perceived, they are unconsciously perceived and can elicit sexual arousal which in turn makes the products more attractive to consumers <13>.
 |
 |
3.
Empirical evidences of subliminal advertising
Even
though Key’s claims have been widely discredited by academicians who have
examined marketing applications scientifically, widespread use of the term
“subliminal advertising” in connection with a paucity of empirical evidence
that subliminal techniques are used by the advertising industry served to
increase the level of public awareness of subliminal advertising <21>.
Actually, despite the result of the study conducted by Rogers and Seiler that
the majority of advertising practitioners denied ever using subliminal techniques
<22>, according to Rogers and Smith, 74.3% of their subjects were aware
of subliminal advertising and
72.2% of respondents who believed advertisers deliberately included subliminal
messages (61.5% of subjects) also believed that subliminal advertising were
effective <21>. A few empirical
evidences that serve to keep public’s fear of subliminal advertising alive
are as follows.
(1)
The Pepsi Cool Can
In 1990, Pepsi actually withdrew one of its “Cool Can” designs after someone protested that Pepsi was subliminally manipulating people by designing the cans such that when six-packs were stacked at grocery stores, the word SEX would emerge from the seemingly random design. Critics alleged that the red and blue lines on the “Cool Can” design were far from random <27>.
(2)
The Camel
Tobacco
companies have also been the target of accusations of visual embeds. One common
alleged embed of sexually suggestive imagery is on the standard pack of Camel
cigarettes. Apparently, if you look closely enough at the rear leg of the
camel on the cigarette pack, you can see an image of a naked mean standing
tall facing the rear of the camel with an erect penis <27>.
 |
 |
(3)
The ‘RATS’ ad
In
September, 2000, two democratic senators asked the Federal Communications
Commission for a review of the Republican National Committee’s ad. It was
discovered that if the ad was slowed down, the word “RATS” appeared clearly
on the screen in large, white letters superimposed over the words “The Gore
Prescription Plan” while an announcer criticized Gore’s prescription drug
plan. In a fraction of a second, the word disappeared, and the words “BUREAUCRATS
DECIDE” showed up in smaller letters. The “RATS” ad run more than 4,400 times
in 33 markets nationwide in two weeks, costing the RNC more than 2,576,600
<28>.
