(Sub)liminal Advertising

In my personal opinion, if the advertising companies did not want people to see/find subliminal messages or images in their campaigns, there wouldn't be such thing as subliminal advertising. I mean, what better way to pitch a product then to do it without the consumer realizing it's a pitch? Advertising is not JUST about pitching a product, it is about persuading the consumers to buy the product. What people don't realize is that advertising has a lot to do with psychology.

Advertising is undoubtably manipulating people into buying their products. What good would an ad be if people didn't want to buy it? This is where priming is a good method to use. Priming in advertising can be used in many different ways and can induce moods which can further influence how information is interpreted. Priming initially only works if the product is relevant to the consumer. It doesn't have total control over whether or not a product is successful, but it can help persuade the consumer to buy it IF it is meaningful to the target audience.

Priming is an implicit memory effect in which exposure to a stimulus influences a response to a later stimulus. It can occur following perceptual, semantic, or conceptual stimulus repetition. The effects of priming can be very salient and long lasting, even more so than simple recognition memory. For example, if a person was given multiple lists of words that all included the word cat, and later asked to complete a word starting with C, the probability of the person saying the word cat is much higher.

Some examples of priming:

Mood - The mood or tone of a TV show can be carried over into a commercial. Generally, happy TV programs followed by commercials are more inclined to receive positive evaluations by customers. (Why do you think the ads tend to be relative with the change of seasons and holidays?)

      Articles - Articles can also be used as primers. An ad for a large screen laptop generates more positive reactions when the ad is followed by an article on visual quality and versatile functionality (attributes positively related to a large screen laptop).  The interest in the large screen laptop dropped when the ad followed an article about mobility and convenience.

      Sex does sell. It is the ONE thing that every human being craves and can relate to. It entices strong emotions. Due to this fact, consumers tend to buy the products because they connect to our primal needs. (As lame as that sounds, it's true) If the sex aspect of the ad is too prominent, it is generally seen as offensive, hence why advertising companies make it less obvious in their ads.

Here are a few examples:

As far as people having too much time on their hands and looking for subliminal messages, I don't necessarily think they ALL have too much time on their hands, I think some are just pointing out the messages that most people see subconsciously and don't realize it. The Burger King ad is a perfect example. Most people would see is as though the woman is about to eat the sandwich and has a surprised expression on her face because of how amazing the food is. What the advertising company did is hid a sexual aspect in there. They put emphasis on the word BLOW. Some people, especially young teens-adults, will get the hint that they are actually implying falacio as well.

Many films and video games tend to include subliminal images/messages that are not necessarily used for advertising, but are included as hidden messages. They are called Easter Eggs in geek talk. THESE are what people who have too much time look for.

Some examples include:

1. Sex written in the stars after the scene where Simba talks to his father (cloud formation)
2. R2D2 and C3-PO are found carved as hieroglyphs on the wall beside Indiana Jones
3. The little stars on the edges of the Super Mario Galaxy title read MR. GAY
4. ET and his family are at the counsel meeting on coruscant in Star Wars
5. At the end of the Clover Field movie, if you play the last thing said backwards, it actually says "It's still alive" (referring to the alien)