Messages http://www.bizcovering.com/tags/Messages New posts about Messages Subliminal Advertising: Fact or Fiction? http://www.bizcovering.com/History/Subliminal-Advertising-Fact-or-Fiction.266589 It was James Vicary who coined the term “subliminal advertising.” As you've no doubt heard, he's the guy who claimed to have gotten people to drink Coke and eat popcorn by flashing suggestions on a movie screen too fast for the brain to record consciously.

The movie was Picnic, and the year was 1957. Vicary used an instrument he invented, called a “tachistocope” to flash the suggestions “Drink Coca-cola” and “Eat Popcorn” on the screen every five seconds at 1/3000th of a second. He claimed to have boosted Coke sales almost 20% and caused the audience to gorge themselves with nearly 60% more popcorn than usual.

While Vicary couldn't repeat that stunt and later admitted he had falsified the evidence, the stage had been set.

Life is Just a Bowl of Clams

The height of subliminal ridiculousness was reached in 1980 with the publication of The Clam-Plate Orgy and Other Subliminals the Media Use to Manipulate Your Behavior by a man named Wilson Bryan Key.

The book was widely read, particularly at universities, where Key was often a guest lecturer. He was a Canadian native who earned a doctorate in communications from the University of Denver and taught journalism for a while at the University of Western Ontario. Key was a colleague of Marshall McLuhan.

It seems Key was lunching in a Howard Johnson's restaurant when he noticed something eye-catching on the menu. He claimed that when you looked closely, a picture of the plate of Ho-Jo clams was really the portrayal of a sexual orgy featuring various human beings and a donkey.

I wonder if that's where the term “happy as a clam” came from.

The Sexy Side of Products

In another example, Key found S-E-X spelled out by three ice cubes stacked in a glass of Gilbey's Gin. He also saw the word sex printed on Ritz crackers. (Would you like some cheese to go with that, sir?)

Key saw sex in more places than Hugh Hefner. In just one whiskey ad, he found scorpions, the head of a rat, a white bird, a volcano, a mouse, a skull, three wolf faces, a lizard, a cat, a shark, a swan and dozens of “sexes”.

His contention was that, while the embedded words are not consciously apparent, they are unconsciously perceived and can elicit sexual arousal that heightens the attractiveness of products to consumers.

Key unlocked a myriad of unfounded notions, including one that said the unconscious mind processes subliminal messages at the speed of light. According to scientists, however, the fastest brain process is a mere 40 mph or so. Some days I think mine chugs along at around 10 mph at best.

While you might find Key's sex sightings suspect, no one can argue that his imagination is lively.

]]> Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:14:16 PST Advertising Hasn't Really Changed That Much http://www.bizcovering.com/Marketing-and-Advertising/Advertising-Hasnt-Really-Changed-That-Much.239581 Advertisers are still finding unique ways to insult us and denigrate us to sell a product. For years my complaints were about the way that African-American women in the media were portrayed but I now realize that everyone is fair game. For example I finally figured out what they were saying in that Taco Bell commercial with the two women in the club, and the one has a bacon chalupa and I have to admit it is very disrespectful. In fact I'm not surprised feminists aren't all over this. The message is very similar to that of the Hardee's commercial where the girl says that she just really loves meat, you know the one where she wants a Philly Steak hamburger and the guy is like "that's a lot of meat" and she giggles and is like "yeah, ... I just like a lot of meat".

Where are your censors when you need them? Yet that pales in comparison to the more sophisticated ads by companies such as McDonalds; for example they had this one ad that shows a Black woman working in a high-rise office doing anything and everything to sabotage and humiliate her White male co-worker, for no particular reason whatsoever. It wasn't clear if the message was that a Black woman will do anything over food, if food was a metaphor for something else entirely or simply to suggest that a Black woman will resort to desperate measures to get ahead in the workplace. I mean she was really letting him have it, for no apparent reason. The commercial ran for quite some time.

Of course that pales in comparison to an old Calvin Klein ad I saw in the Source years back that featured a Black male wearing all red, looking angry, and a White male on the next page, dressed in all White. Of course by that time Calvin Klein was getting desperate and trying really hard to compete with the Benetton ads, which made his stuff look lame by comparison. It could have been my imagination, but I swore I remember like red horns and a halo thrown in for extra effort.

Everyone remembers the old Pine-Sol ads with the ignorant Black housekeeper showing White people how to clean up house properly. She may as well have been the maid on The Jeffersons. But the real question is, where are the feminists, the angry White men, the civil rights leaders on all of this. We say that we're getting along, but then our intelligence is insulted and we're right back to those old offensive AT&T ads showing the dark continent of Africa. So what gives, are we just plain out tired or is life too hectic and moving along at too fast of a pace for us to really care.

I am a big fan of advertisements, in fact my favorite is a little known Intellivision ad where a kid who is obviously a fan of the console meets up with the spokesman of the company in a suburb which looks to be one of those suburban sprawl areas of eighties Southern California and is in awe. The interaction between the man and the kid is timeless, and that one commercial is a bigger statement of the influence of gaming, or of the power of advertising alone, than any I've ever seen. In fact I'd put it up there with some of the Coke ads, and we all know that they're the undisputed champion of advertising. Coke was doing rather well until they digressed to using CGI and hired Jack White to create the most pop rock song ever but that is neither here or there.

What happened to timeless advertising; Superbowl ads suck and without the infamy of another Janet Jackson trying to answer her younger competition halftime leaves much to be desired. Stop finding creative ways to say "Screw you, you're going to buy our stuff anyway" or insult my intelligence with Mac vs. Windows ads and give me something real. Those old ads are timeless; it's too bad advertisers have ran out of creative ways to entertain us ...

]]> Wed, 03 Sep 2008 04:48:16 PST The Bizpreneur Community http://www.bizcovering.com/Marketing-and-Advertising/The-Bizpreneur-Community.26928 The news about Bizpreneur has been spreading like hotcakes. If you are an online marketer and still hasn't been able to be introduced to this community, you better check the site now. You'd be missing a lot big time.

What are the benefits of being a member ?

Membership is for free.

You are provided a free website service with helpful tools.

Marketing and inviting friends to your business is not considered spamming.

Announcement of new products, events and other business opportunities is allowed by posting it in the bulletin board.

The people are very professional, cool and friendly. You won't have problems with them.

Your advertising cost is greatly minimized.

Success is 99% guaranteed.

Being successful online need not be expensive. Communities like these help a lot so don't ever pass this opportunity to meet fellow online businessmen, establish new business contacts and meet reliable people online.

Another site to check is MyLot . Feel free to browse it's more than 71,000+ members and invite them to be your friends. Whether you want to establish business contacts online or just to meet friends to keep you company and discuss interesting and mind teasing ideas, these sites are highly recommended.

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