Back in the late 70’s/early 80’s when people could still get worked up about subliminal messages, I remember more than one grade school teacher warning us about subliminal messages in advertisements.
The one in particular they would show was an ad for some hard liquor, I don’t remember the type or brand. The ad showed the bottle and a partially filled short glass with ice. One of the ice cubes looked skull-like.
My question at the time, and still is, why did the advertisers think that a skull in the glass would increase appeal? The explanation I’ve heard was that it made the product seem more “dangerous”, or as modern advertisers may say, “extreme” or “edgy”. But my intellectual and gut reactions tell me that a skull goes too far.
Skull->death->bad->don’t drink it.
I can see the appeal in a guy snowboarding off a rock face while slamming a Dew – risky, but gutsy; risk of grave harm comes from a willful, bold act. But a skull in a glass is different – just death in a glass without any heroic mangling or impaling. What explanation for this could the advertisers have that could explain why this would attract more drinkers than discourage them?
This question assumes that a) the skull was put in on purpose, b) the advertisers believed sumbliminal messages worked, and c) that they did think it would increase product appeal (and not that a rogue artist was trying to warn people).
Most of the “subliminal message” talk back then was urban legend, our collective unconscious trying to creep itself out. We were seeing a lot of stuff that wasn’t really there: “hey, that looks like a skull!” Sort of like backwards masking in records trying to lure kids to Satan.
I’m sure you’re right, and IMO people got too worked up about something that’s bunk.
However, I’m convinced there were attempts by advertisers to use subliminal messages, some of them amateurish (a friend of mine has some old Pepsi cans with some promotional design, and when three are stacked and angled right, you can clearly see the word “SEX” – you didn’t have to use your imagination and it looked deliberate).
Unlike backwards masking which seems that it would be terribly difficult to do willfully and would be pointless, I’m going on the assumption that this was something that was actually done by advertisers. I think this case in particular has been in psycology books, so again I’m assuming that this one had been uncovered as an actual attempt to influence.
I actually did a report on the whole subliminal thing back in college around 1974. The book that started the whole thing was Subliminal Seduction by Wilson Bryan Key. I read the book and was left with the impression that Key was seriously schizophrenic finding images where none existed.
The book did initiate some legitimate scientific research, but none of it was able to detect any effectiveness of subliminal advertising.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I worked in advertising for more than 20 years. During that time I knew people who worked in the field even longer than I, and worked on both coasts. And in that time I have never met anyone who has even met anyone who took part in creating subliminal messages in advertising materials.
I don’t doubt that someone has tried it somewhere, but to assume that the advertising industry on a large scale is busy airbrushing skulls and writing “SEX” into the background of ads is simply not true.
Cecil has written a number of columns about subliminal advertising. Although one questioner mentioned skulls, Cecil never addressed those particular images.
I had a teacher in high school who included Key’s books as part of classroom assignments. The teacher had us bring in clippings from magazines that had suspect advertisments. I remember reading the aforementioned Subliminal Seduction, followed by The Clam-Plate Orgy.
The funny thing is, even though most of the time he (Key) was talking nonsense, seeing shapes in clouds, so to speak, once in a while we did find an ad that sported a very clear image. Maybe someone did it to emulate what they read about in Key’s books or to poke fun at them.
It’s truly amazing to read his work, following his blow-by-blow description of all of the goodies hidden in a single picture of a glass of booze, everything ranging from skulls to people chopping each other’s heads off, and in one image, a castrated penis, with anatomically-correct cross section.
An article demonstrating that subliminal advertising is effective was published in the journal Science, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in publication.
A recent ad for the GOP flashed the word ‘RATS’ across the screen in one of their ads-
MSP as my witness, my college brochure had SEX subtley airbrushed in over a picture of a kid studying at the library. I wonder if that had anything do with my choice.
At the risk of being a dumb clod, why the hell would Pepsi do this? Assuming these messages work, which they don’t, why would they design it in such a way that it takes so much effort to see? Wouldn’t that be self-defeating? Are they expecting their customers to spend all day playing around with the cans, stacking and turning them just so, and then assuming if they do, they’ll stumble onto the hidden messages? I’ve heard marketing people were crazy and stupid, but yowza.
My dad used to work in photography (I’m not sure in what capacity exactly) - I suppose the idea is that he photographed the setups in the ads themselves - and he swears people pointed out these messages, “sex” in icecubes and such. I don’t think he’s ever sworn that they work, just that they’re there. I swear he’s an idiot, and try to explain this stuff (mostly based on what I’ve learned from SD columns), but it’s about as effective as when I explain that Edgar Cayce was a fraud, or that evidence of Noah’s Ark was NOT discovered in Turkey. Blech.
This is what happens when Sightings feeds half-truths to dilettantes and encourages them to reject sensible explanations just because. “The truth is boring… unfounded crackpot speculation is sexy!” :mad:
Oh, and I forgot one other detail: the Pepsi thing isn’t a subliminal message anyway. You can SEE it. The idea of a subliminal message is that your conscious mind doesn’t notice, it goes straight to the unconscious, making it (::evil music: irresistible. Ditto for the GOP “Rats” thing. It was a potshot, sure, but it’s not some kind of sinister (and useless) mind-control campaign.
So, I’ll change the question. Why do people who find seemingly negative images that happen to be in photographs believe they are subliminal messages? What is their explanation for why a marketer would want negative images in advertisements?
IF DONE ON PURPOSE (which it likely was not), the idea was that in grocery isles unboxed stacked 6-packs usually wouldn’t line up to get the word, but somewhere on the shelf there was likely an occurance of it.
I remember that controversy. What that article fails to mention is that they actually flashed the word “DEMOCRATS” across the screen (it was a scroll/pan/zoom IIRC–some sort of moving text)–and the truncated “RATS” portion stayed visible longest.
The usual explanation for the skulls and other frightening images in alcohol product ads (given, of course, by those who believe that it is a genuinely existent phenomenon) is that the ads are aimed in large part at alcoholics, who are haunted by terrifying mental images and emotional experiences whenever they go too long without a drink.
It’s been a long time since I read any of Key’s books, but as I recall, the skull (and other images of death) was supposed to appeal to your Freudian death instinct (thanatos). Although we don’t consciously admit it, subconsciously (and subliminally) we find death appealing.
(Caveat: I am not an expert in Freud. Someone else may be able to better explain the theory.)
So, although your conscious mind is repelled by the skull, your subconscious mind is attracted to it, spurring you to buy more liquor.
I’ve heard this story before, but have never been able to find any more information, or pictures to illustrate it. To me, Ritz crackers are plain other than the little holes. Where are we meant to see the words?