Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA22372 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 18 Apr 2002 05:48:28 +0100 Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 00:42:25 -0400 Subject: Re: Subliminal advertising Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In-Reply-To: <FDDF2F47-5278-11D6-9556-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> Message-Id: <AE685BE4-5286-11D6-9556-003065B9A95A@harvard.edu> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.481) Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> I read a report some years ago that claimed theater owners were able to
> increase the number of people who went to buy soft drinks and popcorn
> right after subliminal messages about them were flashed on the screens
> of their movie theaters. Since that's where the majority of their
> money comes from, I believe they were serious about that. I also heard
> a public outcry made them stop doing it, though.
The text from www.snopes.com-
Claim: An early experiment in subliminal advertising at a movie
theater resulted in tremendously increased sales of popcorn and Coke.
Status: False.
Origins: Public awareness of what we now term "subliminal
advertising" began with the 1957 publication of Vance Packard's book The
Hidden Persuaders. Although Packard did not use the term "subliminal
advertising," he did describe many of the new "motivational research"
marketing techniques being employed to sell products in the burgeoning
post-war American market. Advertisements that focused on consumers'
hopes, fears, guilt, and sexuality were designed to persuade them to buy
products they'd never realized they needed. Marketers who could reach
into the hearts and minds of American consumers soon found consumers'
wallets to be within easy grasp as well.
It was James Vicary who coined the term "subliminal advertising." Vicary
had conducted a variety of unusual studies of female shopping habits,
discovering (among other things) that women's eye-blink rates dropped
significantly in supermarkets, that "psychological spring" lasts more
than twice as long as "psychological winter," and that "the experience
of a woman baking a cake could be likened to a woman giving birth."
Vicary's studies were largely forgettable, save for one experiment he
conducted at a Ft. Lee, New Jersey movie theater during the summer of
1957. Vicary placed a tachistoscope in the theater's projection booth,
and all throughout the playing of the film Picnic, he flashed a couple
of different messages on the screen every five seconds. The messages
each displayed for only 1/3000th of a second at a time, far below the
viewers' threshold of conscious perceptibility. The result of displaying
these imperceptible suggestions -- "Drink Coca-Cola" and "Hungry? Eat
Popcorn" -- was an amazing 18.1% increase in Coca-Cola sales, and a
whopping 57.8% jump in popcorn purchases. Thus was demonstrated the
awesome power of "subliminal advertising" to coerce unwary buyers into
making purchases they would not otherwise have considered.
Or so goes the legend that has retained its potency for more than forty
years. So potent a legend, in fact, that the Federal Communications
Commission banned "subliminal advertising" from radio and television
airwaves in 1974, despite that fact that no studies have ever shown it
to be effective, and even though its alleged efficacy was based on a
fraud.
You see, Vicary lied about the results of his experiment. When he was
challenged to repeat the test by the president of the Psychological
Corporation, Dr. Henry Link, Vicary's duplication of his original
experiment produced no significant increase in popcorn or Coca-Cola
sales. Eventually Vicary confessed that he had falsified the data from
his first experiments, and some critics have since expressed doubts that
he actually conducted his infamous Ft. Lee experiment at all.
As usual, the media (and thereby the public) paid attention only to the
sensational original story, and the scant coverage given to Vicary's
later confession was ignored or quickly forgotten. Radio and television
stations began airing subliminal commercials, leading to two
congressional bills to ban the practice being introduced in 1958 and
1959 (both of which died before being voted upon). In 1973, Dr. Wilson
B. Key picked up where Vicary left off, publishing Subliminal Seduction,
an indictment of modern advertisements filled with hidden messages and
secret symbols -- messages and symbols that only Dr. Key could discern
(including the notorious example of the word "S-E-X" spelled out in the
ice cubes pictured in a liquor advertisement). The old "subliminal
advertising" controversy was stirred up again by Dr. Key's book, leading
to the 24 January 1974 announcement by the FCC that subliminal
techniques, "whether effective or not," were "contrary to the public
interest," and that any station employing them risked losing its
broadcast license.
For neither the first nor the last time, a great deal of time and money
and effort was expended on "protecting" the public from something that
posed no danger to them. As numerous studies over the last few decades
have demonstrated, subliminal advertising doesn't work; in fact, it
never worked, and the whole premise was based on a lie from the very
beginning. James Vicary's legacy was to ensure that a great many people
will never be convinced otherwise, however.
Last updated: 1 July 1999
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