Re: When marketeers lie

["Kurt Grutzmacher" <grutz () jingojango net>]

Subliminal advertising was best shown in the wonderful John Carpenter movie
"They Live" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live

Rowdy Roddy Piper's best role ever.  "I have come here to chew bubblegum and
kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."


On 11/5/07, Alex Eckelberry <AlexE () sunbelt-software com> wrote:
>  What most people don't know is that a) it was never outlawed and b) it's
> currently practiced, such as in shopping malls ("do not steal, do not
> steal") and so on.
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* funsec-bounces () linuxbox org [mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org] *On
> Behalf Of *rms () computerbytesman com
> *Sent:* Monday, November 05, 2007 9:11 AM
> *To:* funsec () linuxbox org
> *Subject:* [funsec] When marketeers lie
>
>  An amusing story from today's Wall Street Journal:
>
>
>
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119422046839181941.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
>
>
> For a Time in the '50s, A Huckster Fanned Fears of Ad 'Hypnosis' November
> 5, 2007
>
> At a New York press conference 50 years ago, a market researcher, James
> Vicary, announced he had invented a way to make people buy things whether
> they wanted them or not. It was called subliminal advertising.
>
> He had tested the process at a New Jersey movie theater, he said, where he
> had flashed the words "Eat Popcorn" or "Coca-Cola" on the screen every five
> seconds as the films played. The words came and went so fast -- in
> three-thousandths of a second -- that the audience didn't know they'd seen
> them. Yet sales of popcorn and Coke increased significantly.
>
> "Subliminal Messages -- Friend or Foe?" a newspaper headline asked in
> early 1959, and the public took sides. Critics called subliminal advertising
> "merchandising hypnosis" and "remote control of national thought." Rep.
> William A. Dawson (R., Utah) called it "S.P." or "sneak pitch."
> "Contemplate, if you will," Mr. Dawson said, "the effect of an invisible but
> effective appeal to 'drink more beer' being poured into the subconscious of
> teenage viewers."
>
> All three television networks vowed they wouldn't permit subliminal
> advertising in their broadcasts. Several state legislatures considered bills
> outlawing it.
>
> In 1958, an independent Los Angeles TV station announced it would begin
> transmitting subliminal ads, starting with public-service messages, such as
> "Drive Safely" or "Join the Army." The station was deluged with letters,
> phone calls and petitions from people who were afraid they would be
> persuaded to do or buy things against their will. The station canceled its
> test.
>
> Brainwashing was a very real fear in the late 1950s. A few dozen American
> prisoners of the Korean War, indoctrinated by their Chinese jailers, had
> publicly defected to communism. Meanwhile, people were spending more time
> staring at screens, exposed to new kinds of ads based on motivational
> research. Vance Packard's best-selling exposé, "The Hidden Persuaders,"
> published in 1957, had warned people of the "mass psychoanalysis" that was
> turning them into "Pavlov's conditioned dog."
>
> A newspaper columnist, George Dixon, wrote, only partly in jest, "We might
> be made to unconsciously absorb the suggestion that it is always Christmas
> and normal to be flat broke." It didn't take long before rationality
> reasserted control of the national brain. People began trying to replicate
> Mr. Vicary's experiment.
>
> The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. flashed the message "Telephone now" 352
> times on a 30-minute program. Of the more than 500 viewers who responded to
> a follow-up survey, 51% said they felt compelled to "do something" after
> watching the show. Many said they felt like having something to eat or
> drink. Only one said she felt like making a phone call.
>
> In another test in San Francisco, 150 viewers, most of them television and
> radio broadcasters, watched a 25-minute film with an advertising message
> flashed every five seconds. The viewers then got a ballot with nine product
> names from which to identify the advertiser. Only 14 people chose the right
> name, a soft drink. More than twice as many chose a brand of chewing gum.
>
> The Federal Communications Commission ordered Mr. Vicary to demonstrate
> his device in Washington before a panel of government officials. The message
> "Eat Popcorn" was transmitted during an episode of "The Grey Ghost." Sen.
> Charles E. Potter (R., Mich.) was heard saying to a colleague, "I think I
> want a hot dog."
>
> The advertising industry's trade publication, Printer's Ink, observed,
> "Having gone to see something that is not supposed to be seen, and having
> not seen it, as forecast, the FCC and Congress seemed satisfied."
>
> Subliminal ads, supporters assured people, were strictly "reminder" ads.
> "They might move you to do something you like doing, but they'll never make
> a Democrat out of a solid Republican, and they'll never make a Scotch
> drinker out of a teetotaler," one advocate told Gay Talese of the New York
> Times.
>
> In 1962, Mr. Vicary, in an interview, admitted that he had fabricated the
> results of the popcorn test to drum up business for his market-research
> firm. Subliminal ads were tossed into the invention junkyard.
>
> "All I accomplished," he said, "was to put a new word into common usage."
>
> *Write to *Cynthia Crossen at cynthia.crossen () wsj com
>
>
>
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