referral research 5

Benson and Hedges subliminal messages

The Benson and Hedges company often uses subliminal messages in their advertising.

One of the Benson and Hedges person said this: “As a smoker, you smoke a lot of cigarettes when you feel fear…So, when I tell you that smoking is bad, that you can get cancer from it…that you are killing yourself, most likely you’ll become afraid and you’ll want a cigarette.” - Eric Eraly

This phrase literally is telling the viewers to go and buy cigarettes from them. Advertisers know that people won't bother to look into detail in the printed advert that's why hidden messages are infiltrated.

Ads are designed to the subconscious mind and not the conscious and this s because the subconscious is above the level of power on the conscious. On average, people won't look more than 2 seconds at an average advert so the advertiser has to use those 2 seconds carefully to make a huge impact on the viewer.

References:

The Dark Side of Subliminal Advertising: Benson & Hedges. 2016. The Dark Side of Subliminal Advertising: Benson & Hedges. [ONLINE] Available at:http://darksidesubliminal.blogspot.com.mt/2014/01/as-smoker-you-smoke-lot-ofcigarettes.html#.VzrgN_l97IU. [Accessed 17 May 2016].

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In the book: 'Subliminal Ad-Ventures in Erotic Art',by DR. Wilson Bryan Key, Marshal McLuhan says that whoever is studying the human brain should get to know all about the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is very powerful and some people are terrified of it because of the power that consists. 

When the message is being absorbed deep, it can become a work of art into multiple dimensions. 

Dr. Bryan Key states that the human perceptions are like thin layers of an onion where beneath the layer that one is trying to peel off there's another layer and another and they keep on going. All of this means whether what we perceive is really there or not. He is asking whether or not we invent our own perceptions just to fulfill our conscious and unconscious motives. 













References:

Amazon. 2016. Subliminal Ad-Ventures in Erotic Art: Dr. Wilson Bryan Key: 9780828319515: Amazon.com: Books. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Ad-Ventures-Erotic-Wilson-Bryan/dp/0828319510/ref=pd_sim_14_3?ie=UTF8&dpID=513p44ngwsL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL320_SR214%2C320_&refRID=1ZFYD6G99SGMPPNHRJFS. [Accessed 13 May 2016].

referral research 3

Advertisements have layers, as said in the article, 'Subliminal messages in advertising of why ads are like ogres'. It is stated that if for example there was an advertisement about some well-known sneakers and in this advertisement someone said that if you wear them, you're cool, and especially if it's a celebrity, who's wearing the sneakers.

There are 2 different so-called layers with messages:

Supraliminal and Subliminal, supraliminal is where you see or hear in the conscious and subliminal is the one which is beneath the conscious, aka subconscious. 

These hidden messages receive a lot of attention with consumers because sexual content is often involved.  

Kolenda says in his article, that these popular examples don't even have anything subliminal inside, but they have some images disguised as supraliminal, where one can see the image 'hidden'.  







References:

RealKM. 2016. Subliminal messages in advertising (or why ads are like ogres) | RealKM. [ONLINE] Available at: http://realkm.com/2015/12/31/subliminal-messages-in-advertising-or-why-ads-are-like-ogres/. [Accessed 10 May 2016].

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Subliminal messages have 5 main topics which are: sex, food, fear, drug and violence. These topics are the most effective messages sent as a subliminal message and influence lots of audiences. These people want to influence us into buying products or services that we don't even need. 

Public advertising started in 1957 with the publication of Vance Packard's book entitled, 'The Hidden Persuaders.'

In the 1970's, Dr.Bryan Key wrote books about subliminal messages where they claimed sexual symbols or objects that make consumers buy more. He said thet the word, 'Sex' was often used as a subliminal message. 














References: 

Conscious Life News. 2016. How Subliminal Messages are Used to Control Your Mind : Conscious Life News. [ONLINE] Available at: http://consciouslifenews.com/subliminal-messages-control-mind/1153162/. [Accessed 08 May 2016].

referral research 1

As said in the article (Subliminal Manipulation), any subliminal message that is perceived consciously can be discussed, argued, evaluated and also criticized. Messages which are presented to the people as forms of: pictures, sounds or video that can be very fast, will overpass anyone's subconscious mind. 

Since World War 1, subliminal messages have been used through advertising such as the Times, and when these example where noticed by some people, the readers would pass it off as a joke or as an accident. 

One really popular advertisement was of the film, 'Picnic', where in this short clip a hidden message with the words, 'Hungry? Eat Popcorn, Thirsty? Drink Coca Cola', was shown to the audience. It is flashed 0.003 per second which is really fast and won't be easily seen with the naked eye.  














References:

Subliminal Manipulation. 2016. Subliminal Manipulation. [ONLINE] Available at:http://subliminalmanipulation.blogspot.com.mt/. [Accessed 06 May 2016].

Research

Instead of the simplistic five senses of Aristotle: sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, there are at least thirty-seven known, differentiated sensory inputs into the brain. All of the information picked by these senses is sent to the brain and absorbed by the subconsciousness, however, only very concrete and relevant data is passed to the conscious mind after it has been processed and reduced. All the rest remains ignored. A good example of this is the Cocktail Party Effect: You can talk with a friend in a crowded party and still listen and understand what he says even if the place is very noisy. You can simultaneously ignore what another nearby person is saying, but if someone over the other side of the room suddenly mentions your name, you notice that sound and respond to it immediately. Not only that your name immediately triggers your attention, you usually are aware of the entire sentence it has came in. From this experience we can learn that our brain records everything that takes place around us. Interesting that certain words like sex, blood, death and kill and such have the same effect in triggering your attention as your name.

Research

Serious commercial experiments with subliminal messaging were conducted in the mid 50-s. On June 22, 1956, the British Broadcasting Corporation experimented with projecting subliminal images on television. Pictures were flashed on the screen too quickly to be seen consciously, but they did make an impression on the subconscious. The BBC experiment was followed by experiments by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Mexico's Televisa commercial TV and radio network, US TV station WTWO in Bangor and many more.

Experiments were not limited to television. In 1958, radio station WAAF in Chicago broadcast "subaudible" commercials. Seattle's KOL broadcast hardly audible taped messages "below" the music played by its disc jockeys. "How about a cup of coffee?" was one, and "Someone's at the door" was another. On December 8, 1972, The New York Times reported that In-Flight Motion Pictures, Inc. would begin selling subliminal commercials embedded in the movies they would distribute to all the major airlines. Supermarkets across the country are reducing theft an average 30 to 50 percent by broadcasting subliminal messages such as "I will not steal" and "We are watching you". Stimutech, Inc. of East Lansing, Michigan markets a computer video system that flashes subliminal messages on your television while you watch the regular programming. Subliminal messages are prepared by teams of psychologists who use Freudian ideas to change the thinking patterns and behavior of the viewer.

The most known experiment with subliminal messaging was conducted by a marketing researcher and psychologist James Vicary in 1957 during the presentation of the movie Picnic. Every 5 seconds the words "Hungry? Eat popcorn. Drink Coca Cola" were projected for 0.003 seconds. That is extremely fast. What you see in the picture on the left, for example, flashes for 0.04 seconds. Sales of popcorn and Coke in that New Jersey theater increased 57.8 percent and 18.1 percent respectively. Numerous scientific researches following these experiments confirmed beyond any doubt that subliminal messaging works.

Research

We live in a complex society where our safety and well-being is mostly protected. Most of us feel safe driving down to the local supermarket and back, knowing that we will not be assaulted on the way and that our kids and home is safe from harm. What if our society is taken away, or we are taken away from society. If a group of us is dropped on a remote island, it is likely that some of us will survive and procreate. Coded into our genetic structure are instincts that will assure the continuation of mankind if we are faced with such a situation. 

Drives such as thirst, hunger, and sex, will propel us to take whatever actions necessary to survive. Meyers has said, "Sexual motivation is nature's clever way of making people procreate, thus enabling our specie's survival. The pleasure of sex is our genes' way of preserving and spreading themselves." Fear of death, pain, and suffering will warn us from dangerous situations. Since we live in a sheltered society, our primal drives and fears have been altered to fit other forms. These diametrical extremes-the beginning and the end, have been molded into desire for attention, reassurance, acceptance, immortality, and the fear of financial hardship, sexual insecurity, and loss of power. Few of us worry about when our next meal is, and whether we will be living tomorrow. I

f we are ever thirsty, we approach the nearest water fountain or the vending machine. Despite the fact that our drives and fears are subdued and domesticated, they still exist within us. Advertisers take advantage of this to tempt our deepest drives and scare our morbid fears. Dixon has said that since drives exist at such a fundamental level within us, it is prime target for subliminal stimuli. 

Research

It is generally accepted that we possess various levels of consciousness. For example, the state of consciousness while we dream is different from the state when we are awake. Packard has distinguished the consciousness into three levels. 

Conscious-rational level, where people know what is going on, and are able to tell why. The second and lower level is called, variously, preconscious and subconscious but involves that area where a person may know in a vague way what is going on within his own feelings, sensations, and attitudes but would not be willing to tell why. This is the level of prejudices, assumptions, fears, emotional promptings and so on. Finally, the third level is where we not only are not aware of our true attitudes and feelings but would not discuss them if we could. 

Advertisers use subliminal techniques to influence the second and third level of consciousness. They target the consumer's fears and desires, manipulating them in ways never thought possible. On the other hand, advertisers present to the consumer on the conscious level a safe, neutral, naturally appealing ad to pacify the consumer's resistance to subliminal advertising. While glancing through an ad, the average consumer block-reads paragraphs and barely notices an ad that they have seem many times. This is prime time in subliminal reception because the conscious mind is uninterested in the potentially offensive subliminal material. Key writes: 

To be effective, propaganda must constantly short circuit all thought and decisions. It must operate on the individual at the level of the unconsciousness. Critical judgment disappears altogether. 

Research

Since the 19th century researchers have been performing psychological tests to confirm the existence of subliminal perception. N. F. Dixon has compiled over 500 studies on this topic and concluded in his book that subliminal perceptions exists beyond any reasonable doubt. He said, "It would seem that reports of percepts may be influenced by stimulation which the percipient is not aware. Certainly, it can be claimed that the having of a conscious percept does not exclude the possibility of subliminal effects." His book is held in such esteem one advertiser quoted "Dixon's book is basic reading for our creative department. We think of it as an operational bible." Ironically, Dixon never guessed his work would be used for commercial exploitation. 

Dr. Hal C. Becker has patented a black box from 1962 to 1966 to pipe audio subliminal messages on top of another audio source. He has used this black box experimentally in stores to reduce theft and on weight reduction programs. In the case of the store, which a message such as "Don't steal" was superimposed into background music, theft in the store dropped 37%. However, he has urged caution in the use of such device and keep an eye on "other uses." Since his device is in patent, any company can look up the design and build a similar device to influence the population. Who knows, they may already by using it at every TV broadcasting station. 

It is clear that humans can be affected by subliminal stimuli without their conscious awareness. The understanding of the our brain is too limited to understand how or why this works. However, the advertisers don't care about the inner workings of the brain. They only care that the population can be influenced and they have the resources to do the influencing. 

As with every theory, there are people who argue against subliminal perception. Some are intellectuals, but curiously, the loudest and strongest voices come from the advertisers. The most often used argument against this phenomenon is that it is "inherently unlikely, anthropomorphic, unparsimonious, physiologically inexplicable, and based upon shaky methodology." There are many plausible reasons why people vehemently deny the existence this phenomenon. According to Dixon, people instinctually fear what they do not know. We live in a country where personal freedom is one of the founding principles of this democratic society. To admit to an unconsciousness is to admit to the fact that there are areas of our brain that we can not control, but others can without our knowledge. The resistance is explicated. 

Research

Apparently, subliminal perception is not a newly discovered physiological phenomenon used only by the advertising industry. Historical scholars such as Plato, Aristotle, and even texts such as the Bible have alluded to a subconscious phenomenon. Early artists, such as those in the Renaissance, have used subliminal techniques in their artwork. Aristotle first documented the relationship between dreams and the unconscious mind. 

Impulses occurring in the daytime, if they are not very great and powerful, pass unnoticed because of greater waking impulses. 

One of the controversies surrounding the existence of subliminal perception is its definition. Subliminal means "below threshold." An apple placed in complete darkness would be below the visual threshold for perception. It is not until the lighting on the apple increases to a sufficient level for recognition is it considered "above threshold." The minimum stimulation necessary to detect a particular stimulus (not necessarily recognize), is called the absolute threshold. However, the required amount of lighting on the apple for identification is different for everyone, and therefore what may be subliminal to one person may not be subliminal to another. It is generally accepted that a perception is subliminal if a great majority of the audience can not perceive it consciously. So what is perception? Perception is the brain's reception of incoming stimuli. Dr. Key said perception is total and instantaneous, but only 1/1000th of this is consciously recognized and processed. The rest is either stored in subconscious memory or dumped as irrelevant information. Although we do not fully understand how the brain perceives the world, advertisers have no interest in the motor and gears of the brain. It only cares that the brain is influenced the most by visual stimulation and there are certain ways to stimulate the brain without its conscious awareness. Dixon provides a good definition of subliminal perception, which he words as "subliminal reception." 

1) The subject responds without awareness to stimulus.

2) Subject knows he is being stimulated, but doesn't know what it is. 

Research about my topic

The advertising industry, a prominent and powerful industry, engages in deceptive subliminal advertising which most us are unaware of. By bypassing our unconscious mind using subliminal techniques, advertisers tap into the vulnerabilities surrounding our unconscious mind, manipulating and controlling us in many ways. Since the 1940's subliminal advertising blossomed until now, when you can find subliminals in every major advertisement and magazine cover.

The existence of a subconscious mind and subliminal perception is still a controversy today. There is vast evidence for the existence of both, but the evidence is based on a methodology that is by nature not pure scientific. Despite the lack of conventional scientific evidence, I believe there exists a consciousness that lies outside of our normal awareness. Although I will later provide evidence, the paper assumes the existence of such a phenomenon. 

Do advertisers really put subliminal messages on their ads? Let's explore this topic. Go to the vending machine and buy a can of Diet Coke™. The can looks pretty ordinary--script letters on white bubbles floating on a silver can. Turn your attention now to the passion red glass on the lower left and hold the can arm's-length away from you. Do you see them now? Almost everyone I have shown the can to readily perceived the sexual image. Although this is the most blatant example of embedding I have discovered, Coca-Cola manages to get away with it by placing the image in an inconspicuous spot on the can, masked by the fizzing bubbles and bold print. Since Diet Coke is targeted at female consumers, it would seem illogical to embed female breasts onto the soda can. According to Dr. Wilson Bryan Key, "male genitalia in ads are usually directed to male audiences. Female genitalia are directed to females." I will explain later that subliminal images are most effective when associated with cultural taboos.