Subliminal Advertising

         I first read the full story of the subliminal perception hullabaloo in Age of Propaganda (by Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson).  This debacle began in 1957 when a businessman/advertising expert named James Vicary reported that he had successfully experimented with subliminal advertising – messages flashed too quickly to be consciously seen – in a movie theater in Fort Lee, NJ.  He claimed that these messages telling viewers to buy popcorn and Coca Cola had effectively increased the sales of both.  After a few years of controversy, excitement, horror and many experiments, these results – any results – could never be duplicated.  In the end, the whole thing was pretty much concluded to be a publicity scam.

         Freud on Madison Avenue by Lawrence R. Samuel is a recent book about the use of psychology in advertising, particularly its golden years in the 50s and 60s, and it focuses on the subliminal issue in great depth.  It’s really fascinating how flipped out people got as soon as Vicary’s boasts were publicized.  Of course, it was the Cold War and Americans were particularly paranoid about brainwashing and Communists taking over; apparently some people worried that subliminal messaging would be used to get a Red elected president without our conscious knowledge. 

         Personally, what strikes me about the subliminal perception bubble is that subliminal advertising was really nothing, but people were so worked up about it, and even if it had been something, it would have been invisible, but that’s why they were so scared of it.  I find this thought-provoking or at least amusing.