For the first time, the idea of hidden advertising was born in one of the American cinemas in New Jersey in the summer of 1957. During the Oscar-winning film Picnic, marketer James Wykeri ran an advertisement every 5 seconds on the screen of the film being shown. Show interruptions occurred so quickly that they could not be detected consciously. Yet Wykeri's fleeting soda and popcorn ads boosted sales of cola by 18.1% and popcorn by 57.8%. Does hidden advertising really affect us that much, and if so, can we somehow resist it?
Do the methods of influencing the human subconsciousness work?
When Vykeri shared the results of his experiment with the public, the president of the psychological company Psychological Corp. was very interested in the data he published, who invited the marketer to repeat his experiment, according to the livescience.com portal. However, after failing to restore the company's sales growth, Vykeri admitted that he had simply fabricated the results of his famous experiment. Are subliminal messages then not influencing human decisions?
Perhaps the would-be swindler would be very surprised if he found out that hidden messages are indeed a rather powerful form of influence. Ian Zemmermann, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, believes that subliminal messages can have a certain influence on our decisions, but in order for hidden advertising to work, advertisers need to consider several important points: from the personal attitude of the audience to the product they are showing. to their banal mood.
In theory, subliminal messages convey an idea that the conscious mind is incapable of recognizing. So, the brain can simply ignore the information because of the speed of its display, which was not taken into account, for example, by opponents of one of the US presidential candidates Al Gore in 2000. It is known that then during the broadcast of the debate, the campaign of George W. Bush launched the hidden word "rat" in order to denigrate the candidate in the eyes of voters. Although the result of such an unsightly attempt is still unknown, as we all know, it was George W. Bush who at one time began to rule the United States. Perhaps hidden advertising contributed to this to some extent?
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A laboratory experiment conducted by scientists in 2002 can be evidence of the effective work of subliminal messages. Then
the researchers combined footage of a can from Coca-Cola with the word "thirst" and with one of the episodes of the famous TV show "The Simpsons". The study found that the participants in the experiment were 27% more thirsty than the control group, who watched the animated series without any hidden ads.
Even the Simpsons contained hidden ads.
In other words, subconscious messaging works best when it connects to a pre-existing desire. In the event that the person is not currently experiencing any need or purpose to which the subliminal message is connected, it probably will not be more effective.
However, subconscious influences cannot last long. According to a study published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness in 2016, this effect lasts an average of 25 minutes. After a specified period of time, subliminal advertising disappears from memory and ceases to be effective.
Daria Eletskaya