Origin Of Subliminal Advertising

Advertisements R Us In her essay, Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin talks about the Coca-Cola company’s targeted market based on an advertisement from 1950. Melissa Rubin is an English major at Hofstra University. She proclaims that “they include text and images that reflect and appeal to the ideals, values, and stereotypes held by the consumers they wish to attract.” Rubin points out that the potential audience portrayed in the Coca-Cola ad from August 1950, is mainly caucasian males, blue collar workers, businessmen and servicemen in uniforms.

For years turning the page in a magazine, or clicking on a new link in your browser, the first thing that appears is commonly an advertisement. Now imagine it’s a couple engaging each other in a very sexual way. Would this steal the attention and make you consider what the advertisement is for? Since the beginning of multimedia there have been advertisements, displays that are used to promote products and services to a wide range of audiences. The conflict of how to sell certain products has always been a struggle, however deciding how to properly place, and use the intended product in a way that would convince the audience and others to purchase or want to purchase the subject. An example of this strategy is the “Ultimate

America is being ran by advertisements and commercials. Each advertisement or commercial has a subliminal message and are trying to peek at the consumer’s subconscious to

In the reading Advertisements R Us, Melissa Rubin expands upon her analysis of Coca-Colas’ 1950 magazine advertisement, and brings many points to light about how the company uses cleverly crafted advertising tactics to appeal to a specific group of Americans. By clearly communicating her evidence to back up the analysis of the advertisement, Ruben composes a thoughtful and persuasive paper. For example, Rubin explains how simple details, such as the use of their slogan on the vending machine pictured which reads “Drink Coca-Cola - Work Refreshed”, and the placement of “Sprite Boy” in the ad, all work together to send a message that makes consumers want to buy their product. Consequently, because of the evidence presented in her writing, Rubin has crafted a paper that I find logical and persuasive.

Every day, companies present the people with advertisements everywhere they go. Advertisements have become very prevalent in today’s society nowadays focusing in on a negative connotation. Advertisement has become an effective way for producers to display their new products. In present day, they come in forms of billboards, flyers, e-mails, and even text messages. It is widely known that companies create advertisements to persuade people to buy specific products or goods; however, it is not widely known that advertisements can make a negative impact on today’s society. The companies manipulate people’s mind and emotions, swaying people by new promotions and therefore generating a strong desire to fit into the society, that causes them to make inessential expenditures. Advertisements pose a critical impact on the American culture.

Subliminal messages are messages that are perceived in the unconscious mind that most of the time we are not aware of. These messages are mainly designed to influence that way we think and feel. They are used to get people to buy products from their company. Subliminal messages can be perceived auditory or visually. Subliminal messages should not be legal and should be banned from being used in advertisement for it can lead to negative results. There should be another way to advertise that. Doesn’t involve manipulating our minds into buying the products.

Over the last few decades, American culture has been forever changed by the huge amount of advertisement the people are subjected to. Advertising has become such an integral part of society, many people will choose whether or not they want to buy a product based only on their familiarity with it rather than the product’s price or effectiveness. Do to that fact, companies must provide the very best and most convincing advertisements as possible. Those companies have, in fact, done

Subliminal messages are words, images, or sounds that may arise in television, radio commercials, TV shows, movies, print ads, or recorded music. Mostly, when subliminal messages are seen or heard, they are not acknowledged for what they are. In fact, they may be ignored by the conscious brain and be beyond the level of conscious perception (“What are Subliminal Messages?”).

As an avid football fan, I enjoy watching the super bowl which is a favorite pastime of millions of Americans. The super bowl is an important piece of culture for our society. Something just as good as the super bowl is the 30-second commercial that costs about 4 million dollars to air. The super bowl is one of the biggest platforms for companies to advertise their product and ideas and that is just what Coca-cola did with their very entertaining and controversial commercial in 2014. Coca-Cola celebrates multiculturalism in their commercial. The Lebanon Daily News defended Coca-Cola an iconic American brand for its stance to air a super bowl commercial where ‘America the Beautiful’ sung in 8 different languages.

While it is undeniable that advertising has invaded a number of segments in our lives, it is equally undeniable that the manner in which advertisers have tried to connect with viewers is highly variable and dependent on the presiding values of the culture in the specific time period, which the ad was released. Ads can either try to suggest that a specific product cultivates these desirable values or on the other hand they can attempt to suggest that people that already have these values will use these products. Throughout the course of this paper, three ads from three time periods; 1935-1940: Great Depression, 1941-1945: World War II, 1946-1960: Postwar, and their subsequent dominating historical events will be examined to determine how the

Over the past two decades, researchers have found that the strength of influence subliminal messages can have on customers is measured by the musical tempo and the customer’s music preferences. In a grocery store, slower and more melodic music can be played to try to make the shopper feel at ease and thus want to stay longer. Slower music can help keep guests eating out in a restaurant to hang out a little longer. The longer the guests stay,

Advertisers are not shy to place subliminal message wherever it is possible to do so, and their critics have been just as brave to snatch every opportunity to denounce them, making it their job to desperately reduce these messages to nothing more than sexual images. Subliminal messages include appeals to various luxuries, that the human’s subconscious mind is constantly thinking of. These subliminal messages, like any other part of advertisements, must be parallel to the society of their audience in order to completely appeal to them. Subliminal messages are also various. Critics, however often focus on their sexual references. Various companies have been criticized for including sexual images. It is like taking a

The viewer sits on the couch, nestled inside a cozy, warm blanket with a large bowl of buttery and salty popcorn on his lap. His heart starts racing as the movie reaches its climax. Just as his lungs stop breathing and his eyes grow wide with fascination, the channel changes to an old advertisement that he’s seen a thousand times. Ads like that one appeal to the three main techniques that have subliminal messages to viewers. These different techniques have proven to be effective with television watchers. Advertisers use these three techniques to target a certain audience.

Advertisers and marketing companies are mostly interested in subliminal manipulation because by targeting consumers’ subconscious mind, they can control their involuntary actions, emotions and beliefs. The subconscious part of our mind is able to process around 20,000 pieces of information per second, where as our conscious part can only cope with about forty. This function explains why any subliminal message that our subconscious receives, can be received and responded to by consumers without them ever being aware of it. This form of mind control can be very powerful if used correctly, it could influence consumers to want and buy a product without their control (Winder).

This was greatly adapted in the 1950’s and has moved onwards, becoming more common in the present. Subliminal advertising largely started in movie theaters, where in cinemas they would strew messages saying “drink Coca-Cola (Sheehan, K. B. 2013).” The “drink Coca-Cola” was a phrase that would appear on the screen during the start of the movies and during the intermission and it would subconsciously impulse the viewer to buy Coca-Cola from the food court. Coming into the future this method is used in videogames where while playing you are met with company logos upon starting the game and thereafter shown products from other companies that are placed within the game. Some of the oldest advertisements that appear are from canned beverage companies and now newcomers such as car companies are coming into play, all the while polluting our screens with more subliminal advertising. The introduction of subliminal advertisements into video games has become the next step for many companies taking advantage of a person getting engulfed in the game screen in front of them. In relative concept, companies are taking advantage of the real estate that is your television or your computer and even your mobile phone to get you to buy their products.