Does Subliminal Advertising Work?

7|20|2010

It was all the rage years ago – every college student seems to start off believing it’s true. Subliminal advertising: hidden messages or images in ads designed to affect your subconscious mind, overwhelm you with a longing and desire for, well, you’re not quite sure. Because you never really saw it.

“The Hidden Persuaders” by Vance Packard was published in 1957 and spawned a cottage industry of imitators. Dozens of books have been written on the topic, many with copyrights in the past five years. This is one myth that just doesn’t seem to die. The reality is, if you look hard enough, you can find anything you’re looking for. A profile of Kevin Bacon in the marbleized fat of your maple-cured bacon? It’s in there.

I don’t know of a single professional that believes in subliminal advertising. If any of these conspiracy
theorists had a clue how hard it is to get a simple, decent ad created – much less anything where we’ve inserted a hidden word or buxom curve – they’d give up that story
and steer their offspring away from a career in marketing. 

As talked about in conspiracy theorists, subliminal advertising is BS. Done. End of story.

Or is it?

Looked at another way, subliminal advertising is real and extremely powerful – just not the way Packard envisioned. As detailed in Malcom Gladwell’s “Blink,” the human mind reacts to subtle, below-the-consciousness clues. It’s proven in study after study that we can be “nudged” one way or the other in our thoughts by something as simple as word choice – hearing a series of positive words assigns more positive attributes to whatever follows; negative words give us a more negative attitude.

So what does this mean to marketing? Every detail matters.

This is why the art director wants to spend a little more on a better photographer. It matters.

It’s why a TV commercial averages $332,000 to produce. Could you shoot it with a Flip Video camera? Sure. But the subtle quality cues that are communicated are subliminal advertising. The details matter, even the ones you can’t see.

It’s why your agency resists changes, even the ones that may seem inconsequential to you – everything is connected to everything else. It’s why it’s so dangerous when your sales staff creates their own Powerpoint presentation. (Any company where this doesn’t happen?) Every touchpoint of communication is a piece of your brand and every little thing adds up. Why invest hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars to burnish your brand image and then let the details slide? How many times do we hear, “It’s just this one little thing?” One of my favorite quotes in business sums this up:

“If people see coffee stains on our tray tables, what will they think about the way we maintain our engines?”
– Donald Burr, CEO, People Express Airlines.

What are the subliminal coffee stains on your brand?

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