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Subliminal Advertising

Possibly flogging a dead horse.

OK Adam if that's your official position then it is wrong.

I am telling you now, as an instigator and practitioner of subliminal messaging and suggestive images that they are used. But, they can only be used to reinforce decisions that the audience will already make. Similarly a hypnotist will tell you that the people they 'put under' will only do rediculous tasks if they want to.

It is not a conspiracy it is just a more sophisticated selling technique used on an ever more sophisticated audience. If you ever fancy visiting the agency I work in then give me a shout and i'll show you exactly what and how we do it.

By the way these technique are and can be used to sell anything, from political ideas to a new colour of tomato ketchup.
 
Re: Re: It's NO secret!

Adam Rang said:
I do not know what motives there are, or to what extent this is being carried out, or if it is happening.

How can that be wrong?
 
Lets take this slowly

I do not know what motives there are
- I assume your are talking about the motives whether or not to use subliminal and suggestive messageing.

The motives are, as with any message, to find the most effective way of portraying and delivering the message.

or to what extent this is being carried out,
- I'm assuming that this refers to the extenet subliminal and suggestive messaging is being used.

I know for a FACT that I and thousands of other marketeers, media in general, PR types, spin doctors, politicians and others use sophisticated subliminal and suggestive techniques to get their messages across. It is used because audiences are becoming more sophisticated and therefore to effectively promote your message you need a more sophisticated method delivery ergo subliminal and suggestive messaging

or if it is happening.

It does happen. In fact i've just done a new campaign for an insurance company which uses the techniques mentioned above. You should see my work at the begining of september.

YOU ARE WRONG
 
Found an interesting titbit on subliminal effects in Roger Ebert's (US Film Critic) site:

"In reading some articles on "Star Wars," I read that the left-to-right direction is considered positive in film, and good guys move in this direction. I have not been observant enough to notice this, so is this a common practice for directors? And what are some reasons to identify the left-to-right direction as positive?

"Victor Chen, Houston

"Yes, movement to the right is considered positive, to the left negative. Louis D. Giannetti writes in Understanding Movies, his invaluable book about cinematic language, "Since the eye tends to read a picture from left to right, physical movement in this direction seems psychologically natural, whereas movement from right to left often seems inexplicably tense and uncomfortable."

Also, Rotten.com has some examples of what it claims are subliminal adverts here. My favourite is the Nightclubbing example :D
I have two questions, (i) has anyone got any other examples of ads which could be argued to be "subliminal", and (ii) apparently the original research done on subliminal advertising in a cinema in the 50s (flashing "drink coke" on the screen for single frames .etc.) turned out to be unfounded (large increases in coke sales were not corroborated) then why is subliminal advertising banned in the US?
 
Brainwashing? A five minute soak would do for most people. You don't even need very sophisticated techniques. Just show lots of images of your point of view (eg. cool people wear these trousers or sensible people vote for this party) and try to blot out anything to the contrary. Bright colours and loud noises are all you need. People are just that stupid.
 
I recall in the 90's an advert encouraging kids to drink milk.
There is a bit in the ad where a boy and girl (both 10-12) share a glass of milk, each with a straw.The boy offers the girl the glass and of course she is bowled over;her eyes widen adn love hearts appear round her head.The straws change shape and position in the class to suggest a heart shape. My girlfriend at the time noticed that the shadow cast by the straws falls on the girls chest at this point and momentarily gives her a cleavage of some considerable size....
 
subliminal messages in films and adverts

We have all heard about the subliminal messages put in movies in the past to make people want to buy food and drink, but does anyone know if there are any films/adverts etc with subliminal messages these days?
 
There was a few 'flash frames' featured in "The Young Ones", the BBC TV alternative comedy series from the early '80's.

Images lasting only a few 'frames' included a dove in flight, a jumping frog, a skier, a dripping tap and the "The End" caption from Carry On Cowboy.

Quite why these were used is beyond me.
 
Re: subliminal messages in films and adverts

raven said:
We have all heard about the subliminal messages put in movies in the past to make people want to buy food and drink, but does anyone know if there are any films/adverts etc with subliminal messages these days?
I was under the impression that actual 'subliminal advertising' is illegal. Anyone confirm? (I was told this by some authority figure -I no longer remember by whom; parent? teacher? job interviewer?- way back in the late 70s/early 80s IIRC.
 
The product placement in movies is so blatant now, why bother with subliminal messages?
There was a big fuss over one of Labours election campaigns in the seventies that used the flashing message "Vote Labour".
 
I also thought that subliminal advertising was illegal too.
I seem to recall a trial when they flashed up "Coca Cola" during an ad for something else at the cinema and the sales in the foyer doubled in the next ten minutes. But then someone thought "but you could just flash up "kill the president" during a tv show and someone would do it.

Strange reasoning I thought but there you go! (seeing that planting the idea in someones head would not make them able to do it)
 
A French news show featured a subliminal image of a political candidate in its opening sequence. I've seen the footage, though I'm at a loss as to what it was meant to achieve, apart from looking spooky.

I did post subliminally here earlier. Should be taking effect right about...now.

(You'll probably want to put some paper down).
 
In the 2000 US Presidential election, the Republicans ran an ad in which the word "DEMOCRATS" flashed up on the screen. Except the "RATS" portion came up very slightly sooner then the rest of the word. Cue massive row re: subliminal suggestion, angry denials, etc.
 
Dark Detective said:
"Since the eye tends to read a picture from left to right, physical movement in this direction seems psychologically natural, whereas movement from right to left often seems inexplicably tense and uncomfortable."
I wonder if this ties in with language. Are left to right eye movements "natural" for all humans, or only for those whose language is read in that direction?

If it's the former, is the reading experience itself tense and uncomfortable for those who do it right to left?

And if it's the latter, does it mean that cultures in which reading is done right to left don't experience cinema in the same way as left-to-right cultures do?
Is there a contradiction between the identity of the character (good guy/bad guy) and the way he/she moves across the screen? And does it hinder the viewing of the movie?
 
The same question was asked at the original source, and the discussion continues:

Some two dozen Answer Man readers asked the same question. I was quoting from Louis D. Giannetti's invaluable Understanding Movies, now in its ninth edition. He writes: "Since the eye tends to read a picture from left to right, physical movement in this direction seems psychologically natural, whereas movement from right to left often seems inexplicably tense and uncomfortable."

Directors often use that insight to subtly underline the emotional effect of scenes; Hitchcock, for example, rarely violates it. Essentially, the right is more intrinsically weighted than the left, the top than the bottom, the foreground than the background. The balance point, where an object seems ideally placed, is not true center, but a little higher and to the right.

But is that only true in Western countries, where we read from left to right? I telephoned Prof. Giannetti at Case-Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He said he picked up the insight from the work of art historian E.H. Gombrich. "When I started asking around," he said, "cinematographers told me, they don't look at it that way. Especially when they're working out of doors, the direction and quality of the light determines everything. But they said directors do often use the left to right rule, composing their shots as a theater director would; the practice derives from stagecraft, and the importance of stage right.

"In the case of Asian directors, someone like Kurosawa does seem to use left to right. Ozu of course is the exception to every rule, and composes every shot independently. I'm not that familiar with Middle Eastern directors, so I can't say. But I doubt the rule comes from the fact we read from left to right. It seems to reflect something innate in our minds. Classical theories of painting also reflect the left-right rule, and if you flip left and right by looking at a painting in a mirror, something looks wrong about it."
 
Wow! only just read this thread..close to setting on fire at one point!
Yes, there was an act passed to ban so-called subliminal inserts in ads quite a long time ago. The def. was a single frame insert in a filmed sequence. Whether it really works is prob. debatable, and having worked with film, most editors learn to spot a single frame though they may not be able to tell you what was on it other than if it was a square or a triangle for example. The use of association techniques is not banned, and once pointed out people quickly recognize them for what they are.
See, I'm all for education for life :D
 
If subliminal advertising is deemed not to work, then why is it banned?
 
Some interesting links here

I hope they are of some use. Although I STILL can't see where the conspiracy is :)

http://parascope.com
This website contains information on hidden persuasion, Washington’s reactions, Vicary, the article about Wilson Bryan Key’s article "Embeds Everywhere," subliminal suicide, stories about subliminal stimuli in music and how subliminal survives.

http://www.innergear.com
This website gives you information on how you can get tapes that can improve your memory, such as the tape that was used in the experiment to see if subliminal messages helps memory.

http://www.WatchtowerObserver.com
This Site features subliminal embeds allegedly used in Jehovah’s Witness publications. The site features a heavily illustrated analysis that makes an interesting case, what ever its accuracy.

http://www.hunter.holowww.com/sublim.html
This website goes over the way subliminal messages work in all of aspects and goes over the four basic types of subliminal methods.

http://www.poleshift.com
This website shows a large amount of subtle non-verbal messages in body languages inn advertisement


The above is taken from here
http://www.cbt.wiu.edu/John_Drea/subliminal_perception.htm
 
evilsprout said:
I remember an episode of Columbo based on this... what happened was an evil projectionist fella fed his victim loads of caviar to make him thirsty before a show, then flashed a flashframe of a glass of coke or summat. Because he was already gagging for a drink, he went out to the water fountain at that point and BAM! he was shot.

After that the evil fella was followed around and annoyed by a squinty fella in a mac, but I guessed you guessed that bit...

MEGA BUMP!

14th APRIL 2007 (today) - FIVE (UK)

3.30pm Columbo: Double Exposure (PG) (FILM) 1973

A self-centred blackmailer, Dr Bart Keppel, uses his expertise in planting subliminal messages in the subconscious mind to carry out a murder and pin the crime on the victim's wife. However, any hopes of getting away with it are dashed by the arrival of a certain shabby detective.

Not one of the best Columbos - but there's a classic golf scene.
 
I was watching an episode of "The Young Ones" yesterday ("CASH", season 2) and this frame flashed up just as Mike and Vyvyan are about to eat a meal of Risotto (actually plates piled up with snow).

snowman.jpg


There are a number of these 'blips' that occur throughout the series.

EDIT -

"A couple of pictures that are completely irrelevant to the plot of The Young Ones pops up every once in a while during the programme.

In the second season, flash-frame images included a dove in flight, a
jumping frog, a skier, a dripping tap and the "The End" caption from
Carry On Cowboy."

Link
 
Xanatic~ said:
Apparently when they looked at the bookkeepings of the cinema, they never found anything that indicated the sales went up.

I heard this, too. The problem is that the image has to be on the screen long enough to be recognized, and if the image is on that long, you'll see it consciously. Very few images are recognized subconsciously, mostly images having to do with "run away right now!"
 
I remember an episode of Discovery Channel's Mythbusters where they tested Subliminal advertising. After much experimentation, they couldn't find anything that would suggest that it works. Myth BUSTED!

In a related topic, has anyone tried subliminal learning? Where you sleep with a recording teaching you a different language or whatever?
If so, does it work?
 
Resurrecting this ancient thread, even though this example isn't so much subliminal as it is sneaky.
(there's no thread here for the merely sneaky advert :))

It's an ad for the Volkswagen Passat. On the surface, it's a sentimental, slightly humorous montage of a man who's shirking his wife's phone calls to play with his kids, set to the song Beth, by Kiss.

Underneath though, IMO, it's a clever reworking of what Douglas Ruskoff (in his book, Coercion) described as the formula for creating suggestibility to sales: generate disorientation, induce regression and become the target's tranferred parent.

Have a look for yourself. Can you see the sneaky things I'm talking about?

I'll put my interpretation under spoiler tags, so as not to influence anyone's ideas.

(Generate disorientation)
The song Beth was released in 1976. Not a song most of us have heard for a long time. Music has been proven to trigger old, long buried memories. Plus, when was the last time you heard a Kiss song in advertising? The fast and slow motion bits mixed with regular speed are also slightly disorienting.

(induce regression)
The kids' clothes, the colors, the amusement park, arcade and bowling alley are mid-70's style, despite appearing to occupy a modern setting. Dad appears to be in his mid to late 40's, which means that back in 1976 (or therabouts) he was the sane age as his kids are now. (This I thought was the truly sneaky bit)

(Become the target's transferred parent)
But dad is a grown up, with a wife and kids and and eveything, and whaddya know, he drives a Passat!

Maybe this is the kind of thing everyone notices, but it caught me by surprise. Which isn't to say this is the only interpretation or that it's absolutely correct. There are probably a lot of other things going on in that commercial. It was just intriguing to think about the complex ways we are targeted for advertising. And no, it has not inspired me to buy a Passat. :p
 
The thing that struck me the most was the fact that the husband and kids had been missing all day with no phone contact and the wife didn't freak out and call the police. They could have been lying in a ditch somewhere. It's not until the very end that it's made clear they are still a couple - were we supposed to think they were divorced and he might be planning to abduct them?

when was the last time you heard a Kiss song in advertising?
I knew it was drummer Peter Criss singing and a look on Wiki tells me that it was written by him before joining Kiss, so maybe, legally speaking, he owns all rights. (Although, knowing what Gene Simmons attitudes to business are like, I doubt it.)
Why are so many dads in TV adverts portrayed as irresponsible child-like characters, always shirking their duties?
 
I think that's a really good analysis, @Ulalume. I watched the ad before reading your view, and you hit on something which I only appreciated vaguely - that there was something odd about the activities that the Dad and kids were doing together, something 'traditional' or 'old school' about them. I also think it's significant that the man doesn't actually SPEAK to his wife, but instead interacts with her at one remove via a computer voice. Not sure what to read into that!

I've never heard of Douglas Ruskoff, and the book you mention intrigued me - is it worth a read?
 
The thing that struck me the most was the fact that the husband and kids had been missing all day with no phone contact and the wife didn't freak out and call the police. They could have been lying in a ditch somewhere. It's not until the very end that it's made clear they are still a couple - were we supposed to think they were divorced and he might be planning to abduct them?

Too true. If it were me, I'd be worried sick!

I knew it was drummer Peter Criss singing and a look on Wiki tells me that it was written by him before joining Kiss, so maybe, legally speaking, he owns all rights. (Although, knowing what Gene Simmons attitudes to business are like, I doubt it.)
You're probably correct about Gene Simmons. :p I tend to think that Kiss doesn't have as much advertising potential beyond a certain demographic, unlike, say, The Who (whose music turns up in half the ads on television, it seems.)
Why are so many dads in TV adverts portrayed as irresponsible child-like characters, always shirking their duties?
Step 2 - induce regression!

I think that's a really good analysis, @Ulalume. I watched the ad before reading your view, and you hit on something which I only appreciated vaguely - that there was something odd about the activities that the Dad and kids were doing together, something 'traditional' or 'old school' about them. I also think it's significant that the man doesn't actually SPEAK to his wife, but instead interacts with her at one remove via a computer voice. Not sure what to read into that!
Very interesting point, Novena. I'd noticed that he didn't directly speak to his wife, too, but haven't been able to figure how this fits into what they are trying to present.

I'd really only noticed the 70's style because I'd just had a glimpse of the commercial the first time, as I was walking past the television. I'd had the impression that the kids activities were taking place in the 70's. When I saw the whole thing, I was startled to realize that it was all meant to be current. That's when it clicked.

I've never heard of Douglas Ruskoff, and the book you mention intrigued me - is it worth a read?

It's an excellent book. A wee bit dated now, because it came out in '99, but still chock full of information about manipulation in advertising. He's written quite a few books and done several documentaries, too. I'll post the links to his website and blog in a second, from the tablet (old desktop too creaky and slow.)

Edit- here you go:
website
http://www.rushkoff.com/
Blog:
http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/
 
Last edited:
It's an excellent book. A wee bit dated now, because it came out in '99, but still chock full of information about manipulation in advertising. He's written quite a few books and done several documentaries, too. I'll post the links to his website and blog in a second, from the tablet (old desktop too creaky and slow.)

Edit- here you go:
website
http://www.rushkoff.com/
Blog:
http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/
Looks interesting indeed - thanks @Ulalume :)
 
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