The Effectiveness Of Subliminal Advertising

Individuals decide whether or not he or she want to believe the advertisements they see and hear. Just as O’Neill evinced “You must listen. You must read. And finally you must think – all by yourself” (352). If individuals learned how advertisements work, he or she can avoid being persuaded by the salesman. The individual will no longer feel forced to buy products he or she did not want. Society should serve a positive influence for change in advertising.

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

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.

Advertisements come in various shapes, sizes, and mediums, and as humans, we are constantly surrounded by them. Whether they are on TV, radio, or in a magazine, there is no way that we can escape them. They all have their target audience for whom the advertisers have specifically designed the ad. When a company produces a commercial, their main objective is to get their product to sell. This is a multibillion-dollar industry and the advertisers study all the ways that they can attract their audience’s attention. The producers of advertisements have many tactics and strategies they use when producing an ad to get consumers to buy their product. These include things such as rhetorical

When watching TV, it is almost certain that an infomercial will cross paths with an innocent bystander. Some people ignore the enticing “deals” on their television, but others cannot help the classic “but wait there’s more” call. Today in America and around the world, consumers are being subliminally advertised to whether it is by a billboard, an online article, promotion by a celebrity, or even a commercial on TV. Many in the advertising and market industries use strong rhetoric to lure people into buying a product or service. The MagnaSoles article from “The Onion” however , exposes the loopholes in a satirical manner for those who may not be aware of the constant marketing battle.

First, our minds are manipulated by advertisements we see every day. The advertisements we see every day can manipulate our choices to buy their products, without us realizing it. First, many companies find ways to make the customer buy their products such as food companies like McDonald’s uses specific colors to attract customers to their food products. For example “red stimulates our appetite” to affect our emotions with “the perfect color to amplify it” (Distractify staff 10).

Throughout the last decades there has been vast improvements in advertising and its persuasive effects to our psychology. Not only has it become part of our global culture, it is so deeply ingrained in our society that we sometimes don't even notice if someone trying persuade us by their use of simplistic persuasive techniques. It is only when we reflect on the speech, video, or advertisement that we can pinpoint their propaganda objectives.

The Avocado from Mexico 2017 ad is a great example of advertising layering (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VneoEvAJX0g). The ad promoted a specific good the avocado. Before you can figure out what the ad is about, the ad takes you through array of media propaganda and highlights, by touching upon some of the unanswered questions, such as is Area 51 (Aliens), Big Foot, the speculation that the moon landing was faked and leaking of information (current political joke with current administration). In addition, it also played upon how even in a secret society, information can be easily shared through streaming on social media and if subliminal ads are real (great twist at the end). The ad does persuade me to include the avocado, into my daily

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.

Tentative thesis: I believe that subliminal messaging is not dangerous, but rather harmless because of the different support I have research; I have found that consumers have much more control over what is perceived than they are given credit for.

There was a time when advertisement were made only to market and sell the products but now dramatic changes have taken place in this field (Shead and Dobson 01). Today companies not only want to sell their products but also aim to create emotional attachment with the customers for which they do emotional or subliminal advertising.

Weekend sports on TV have long been the prime time for beer, car, and entertainment advertisers to bring out their most sexualized ads for the sport loving man, which is the majority of the American male population (Craig 193). Like many industries, technology has also tried its hand with a sexual ad that pushes the envelope of what is acceptable for the original geek buyers and the target mainstream buyer. Samsung aired their sexualized ad, “Seductive Motion,” in 2012 and surprisingly achieved chart topping results with the mainstream buyer base. Shocking results are not new for the ever changing technology industry but these related to Samsung’s new advertisement defy trends for technological ads and do bring up several important questions. Like, what transpired in Samsung’s controversial ad that warranted a positive response from the mainstream consumer and how has nerd culture been popularized and integrated with current mainstream ideals?

Scarcity in persuasion is when we see something getting less available, we have more desire to possess that thing. Companies often use this persuasion technique to attract more customers to buy their products; in this paper, an analysis will be made about how five different companies used scarcity techniques, in order to persuade people to buy their goods.

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.

Persuasion is the process of changing a person’s attitude or behavior towards an idea, event, person, or an object. Persuasion specifically applies to the promotions, and builds on customer behavior to lead them to purchase. Persuasion is used to convince consumers to purchase the products over competing brands, companies usually focus on differentiating their products, building brand awareness and loyalty, and providing consumer education. The six main principles of persuasion are authority, likeability, reciprocity, consistency, consensus, and scarcity (Cialdini, 2006). Some of the theories used to persuade consumers are amplification hypothesis, conversion theory, priming, scarcity principle, social