The Power of Subliminal Advertising
Another fantastic YouTube video, this time by mind trickster Derren Brown. Watch and enjoy, this is truly remarkable.
Once you’ve watched the video have a think about what you can do to capture people’s attention without them necessarily realising you are advertising to them.
Tag:Advertising
I am blown away by this demonstration. To see the final 20 seconds of the video where things are explained reinforces just how powerful stimulation is. Thanks for finding this.
Subliminal Advertsing at Work, this is Powerful…
I don’t often link directly to another blog but today I’m going to. If you want to see the power of subliminal advertising at work, and understand just how much you are affected by it in your day to day activities then do yourself a favour and watch …
London Bloggers Meet-up…
Just a quick shout-out to announce an upcoming bloggers get-together. The event takes place on 27 November at the Camel and Artichoke, Waterloo. It’s following that simple yet winning formula: get some interesting people in a pub and have some beers….
[…] here to read Author Vaughn Lott Comments […]
That is a very interesting demonstration. I wonder how many times i’ve made a decision about something for one reason when really that decision had already been influenced by something of which i was unaware.
Carl - I know what you mean, when I first watched the clip I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s incredible what he achieved. And thanks for the link!
Gorilla Trades - I bet this happens all day everyday. I was recently asked to help create a brand name for a new client and my favourite idea, which I thought was original, was incredibly similar to that of another company I walk past every other day.
I saw this when it originally aired and I was blown away. It’s nice to see such an “in your face” example of the power of visual design. It also made me take a moment to evaluate what I allow myself to take in from the world around me. If you don’t think it affects you, think again.
It’s about time advertising goes discreet. It’s more dignified that way,,
Wow - I haven’t seen an example of subliminal processes this good since my advanced memory retention courses in college. As a new blogger, this was a potent reminder of how daily minutia affect our thought patterns. Great Vid!
Patrik, thanks. An unbelievable contribution. I had heard of the coke hoax, but not in such detail. Interesting to read about the fear of subliminal messages being used as cold war propaganda. Also that this type of tactic is partly why marketing / advertising sometimes has a bad name.
Thanks again. Andy
PS I hope you had permission to post that article?
Given the origin and the negative connotations associated with the term “Subliminal Advertising” or any other Subliminal phenomenon it might as well be better to re-define the terminology. A number of vaguely defined terms are being used in discussions of subliminal effects. For instance, that information are being received unconsciously, subconsciously, not consciously, without awareness, unintentionally, below the attentional threshold or some other related description. The terms in the previous sentence are not synonyms and furthermore they are often used in a careless manner. Without defining them all I will at least discuss one of them, Subliminal.
From my point of view an organism can either receive a stimulus or it cannot receive it. And there is of course an entire spectra of levels in between receiving and not receiving. Where the “real” threshold is, is of course an interesting area to study. That is, how faint a stimulus can be before it becomes subliminal. From this last sentence you can conclude that my position is that a subliminal stimulus should not, in any way, be registered by an organism. Otherwise the stimulus is not subliminal.
There is something paradoxical with researchers studying a phenomenon that according to the definition of the studied phenomenon should not generate an effect in the studied organism. Thereby the researcher should not be able to measure any effect either.
Consider this; you are studying the phenomenon of subliminal advertising, subliminal messages, subliminal marketing, subliminal smells or the like. At the same time, as a researcher you are aware of the fact that the very concept of “subliminal” means that whatever stimuli is being used it will be insufficient as a stimuli. That is, since it is defined as subliminal it will be below the threshold of having any effect on the human brain. Consequently it would be more honest as a professional researcher and more adequate to state, contrary to most studies I have seen, that “after conducting this study we actually found that there indeed is a response (in some way) in the nervous system from the input used in the study, hence the input used does not qualify as a subliminal stimulus”. Or that “we found that there was no effect, hence the stimulus can be considered as subliminal.”
The point is that a stimulus that generates a response should not be termed subliminal, at least not by professional researchers.
It is my sincere suspicion that some researchers use the word “Sublimnal” for PR reasons in order to get more media attention for their research. Insert the word subliminal and you will automatically get less informed journalists to write about your research with the Coke & Popcorn angle as a foundation. There is of course also the group of researchers, coming from other areas than marketing/advertising, that are unaware of that the original “subliminal advertising” of Coke & Popcorn was a hoax.
//Patrik Nilsson
Stockholm Institute of Communication Science - Stics
www.stics.se
So what you are saying then Patrik is that subliminal is entirely the wrong word as it suggests that the advertising wouldn’t be noticed at all. Who would invest in an advertising campaign that nobody would ever notice?
Should it really be called Subtle Advertising then, or something along those lines?
Again thanks for the in-depth contribution.
Thank you for the great video.
Here’s an example;take the world famous Virgin logo.If you turn it slighty to the left so that where the underline and tail of the g form an X,you’ll also notice the V forms a slightly hidden S and the i,r and part of the g form a broken capital E,spelling the word SEX.
So you have Sex/Virgin in one word.Very clever Mr.Branson.
Darren, you are mistaken!
In the “example” you are referring to it is obviously possible for anyone with normal vision to “see” what you see. That means that “the message” is not subliminal but supraliminal, i.e. the “sex message” is above the threshold and not below it.
Darren, the fact that you are able to tell us about what you have seen is in fact evidence that it is not subliminal. If the message had been truly subliminal you would not be able to tell us about it, because you would not be aware of seeing it!!!
On the other hand I would say that it is extremely far fetched to interpret the Virgin logo in the way you do. There is nothing more hidden in the Virgin logo than what is hidden in the clouds. Your imagination is the only limit of what you can see when looking at the clouds. Do you for instance believe in “The Man in the Moon”? Who placed “him” there and why did they make “him” “subliminal”?
Aries, Taurus, Libra etc… are they subliminal images in the skies placed there by ancient marketers or what are they?
And by the way, in what way would the word “sex” add something positive to Richard Branson’s business? What would be the outcome or effect of those three letters according to your interpretation? Would he sell more sex?
Utbildning
http://www.stics.se
Yeah,right.Then why is the “g”drawn like a “q”,the “V”drawn with extentions to make it look similar to an “S”and the word “Virgin” underlined.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Maybe you should pull your head out from the clouds and you might just see something.
Oh…and since you can’t see the sex in Virgin…it must be subliminal then.-)
Carl, the purpose of advertising is to achieve something, to generate an effect (on sales for instance). Then, given the inherent properties of “subliminal advertisng”, the purpose of “subliminal advertising” is to achieve nothing!
If you don’t know the history and origin of the tale of “subliminal advertising” then please read here:
http://iloblog.stics.se/yard?Home&post=2
Why fade and obscure your message into nothingness when you can put it straight in front of your customer big and crystal clear? What is it that make you believe/hope that so called “subliminal advertising” is efficient at all? It is folklore and urban legend and nothing more.