Is there a subliminal message in Advertising?

1. Today’s Transparent
Subliminal
PhD. Att. Oana BARBU
West University of Timisoara

2.  Whatis a subliminal
message?
◦ "sub" = below
◦ "liminal" refers to the "limen" or "threshold" of
conscious awareness
subliminal-messages are messages that you’re
not consciously aware of, but are still able to
influence or affect you on a subconscious level.

3.  Subliminal stimuli
◦ Exterior factors you cannot control
◦ strong enough to trigger a neuron in your
brain, but not strong enough for your mind to
be able to detect or identify the message
consciously
◦ They affect the most intimate level

4.  An orange kangoroo from Denmark

5.  Subliminal stimuli we cannot
overpass
◦ Primary instincts
 Sigmund Freud: hunger, fear and sex
◦ Archetypes
 If somebody rescues the princess  he is a hero
◦ Socio-cultural symbols
 The cross stands for?
◦ divinity
◦ cardinal points
◦ division of the world into four elements
◦ Life
◦ the union of the concepts of divinity, the vertical
line, and the world, the horizontal line (Koch, 1955)

7.  Subliminal stimuli we cannot
overpass
◦ Prejudices

8.  Subliminal stimuli we cannot
overpass
◦ Memory stimuli
◦ 1909 Marcel Proust writes his famous work In
Search of Lost Time
◦ Gains its popularly for the notion of involuntary
memory
◦ "episode of the madeleine".

9.  Subliminal stimuli we cannot
overpass
◦ Rituals
 Corona beer
a time-honored Mexican custom?
NO!

10.  Subliminal stimuli we cannot
overpass
◦ Emotions
 we are all emotional human beings!

11.  Types of subliminal messages
 Subliminal audio tapes
◦ The most common and well-known form of subliminal
messages
◦ verbal affirmations are recorded at a lower level (in other
words, very softly), and mixed with a much louder
"foreground“
 bubbling stream,
 rain-drops,
 Wind or wave sounds
 other easy-listening sounds
◦ Associated with therapeutic and motivational purposes

12.  Types of subliminal messages
 Back masking
◦ messages that are played backwards such that
it’s impossible for the conscious mind to
understand anything.
◦ During the 1970s, media reports raised a series
of concerns of its impact on listeners, stating
that satanic messages were calling its listeners
to commit suicide, murder, abuse drugs, or
engage in sex—which were all rising at the
time

13.  Types of subliminal messages
◦ Silent Subliminal
◦ either a very high frequency message or a very
low frequency one,
◦ inaudible to humans.

14.  Visual subliminal messages
Most famous subliminal experiment:
In 1957, James Vicary conducted an experiment at a movie
theater in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Vicary placed a tachistoscope (a device which flashes a
series of images rapidly onto a screen) in the movie projection
room.
During the screening of the movie "Picnic", he flashed rapidly
several messages ("Drink Coca-Cola" and "Hungry? Eat
Popcorn") on the movie screen every five seconds.
He claimed that the results showed that Coca-Cola sales
increased by 18.1%, while popcorn purchases jumped by a
significant 57.8%.

15. James Vicary actually faked the
results of the experiment.

16.  Hidden symbols
 Hidden texts

17.  Suggestive images

18. •Hidden images

19.  Today’s subliminal actions are even more
effective!
 they appeal to our 5 SENSES!
The obvious is the new
subliminal!

20.  Sight
Body wisdom

21.  Sight
wedding consultant

22.  Smell
◦ New car odor
◦ Barkley’s Bank
◦ Singapore Airlines

23.  Taste
 Taste of Christmas
◦ cinnamon yogurt
 Provoking a taste through visual images
◦ how does the summer taste?

24.  Hearing sounds
◦ Music tempo
◦ Nature sounds in supermarkets at the grocery
rayon
◦ Catchy sounds (Nokia sound, Intel inside
sound)

25.  Touch
◦ Toys that have a “try me” button
◦ The tinier and lighter the digital camera or tape
recorder is, the more cutting-edge the
technology inside it must be, right?

26.  Brand Sense - Martin Lindstom
 Uniqueness
 Memorabilia
 engagement
 Differentiate
 Builds trust

27.  But is it a transparent engagement?
 Where is the line between
transparency and subliminal in brand
communication?
 How can you outlaw something that is
not consciously visible and it’s highly
interpretable?
◦ The moment you realize the subliminal
message through your senses, it’s not
subliminal anymore!