Something Hidden In TV Advertising?

All right, advertising is everywhere. On billboards (now outside and inside), on the radio, print media from magazines to newspapers and even to books, on T-shirts and on TV. Especially TV. Advertising, it is obvious, is unavoidable. But is there something more to worry about? For decades, there have been nationwide (and perhaps even international, though American are more paranoid than most and do watch more television than anyone else) rumours and fears about a dread form of brainwashing called “subliminal advertising.” Urban legends abound about ordinary citizens, through TV advertising, made to do crazy things like buy more Coca-Cola, listen to this or that FM radio station or even re-elect George W. Bush, Jr. And even in the twenty-first century, the question remains: “Does subliminal advertising actually work?”

As though with ubiquitous mass media, American citizens needed more brainwashing for their already squeaky-clean cerebella. Nevertheless, those folks in TV advertising and consumerism never stop working for, uh, our benefit…

Aldous Huxley first promulgated the idea in his dystopian novel “Brave New World.” Printed in the 1930s, “Brave New World” saw the light of day before TV advertising existed, yet, in the same way Huxley forecasted virtual reality (in his concept of the “feelies”),  the author was able to foresee a whole new way of distraction and so-called entertainment that would well serve the needs of the state or at least a few privileged individuals. Huxley may have gotten the idea from an even earlier source. In the late nineteenth century, the fascinatingly named E.W. Scripture first described the principles of subliminal input while much of the population was enamored with phrenology.

In 1957, the Subliminal Projection Company was formed. Founded by one James M. Vicary, the firm’s promise was to exploit the possibilities of subliminal stimulation. By flashing a message within the screening of a motion picture, consumers could be encouraged to do what they do best: consume more. The Subliminal Projection Company, as the name implies, worked primarily with film first. Film represented the easiest medium in which to insert subliminal messages, as the message could be imposed on a single frame of film at whichever intervals were chosen to be unnoticeable on the conscious level. (To be precise, Vicary and company inserted his message at 1/3,000 of a second.) As for advertising on television, the method is a bit trickier, but with today’s technology, quite possible. 

After using New Jerseyites as guinea pigs, Subliminal Projection Company showed results taken from a New Jersey cinema showing popcorn and Coca-Cola sales increasing through no other way than by Vicary’s invention. Two things then happening pretty much immediately. A national furor resulted in the commie-paranoid sensationalist newspapers, and professionals poopooed Vicary’s results. Indeed, the Subliminal Projection Company’s experimentation was extremely spurious, and no hard data was ever revealed. Ultimately, the American Psychological Association got into the act, proclaiming in 1958 that subliminal advertising was bunk.

Advertising on television continued using the technique, however, most famously (mostly because the ad agency in question blatantly announced their subliminal advertising on television) in Pican Corporation of Los Angeles’ commercials for a short-lived board game.

Is subliminal TV advertising on television dead? Probably, but perhaps not. In the meantime, the Subliminal Projection Company still survives, today advertising burn-your-own subliminal CDs with MP3 files. Self-brainwashing anyone?

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