Exercise 46: The Absolute Threshold Level
and Subliminal Messages
Objectives
<<NL>>
Background
Overview
of Perceptual Principles Covered in and Organization of the Remaining Chapter
13 Exercises
Recall
the consumer information-processing model outlined in Figure 1 for this chapter
with its stages of exposure, attention, comprehension, and retention.
This and the following three exercises will investigate more closely several
phenomena related to the attention
and comprehension phases of the
process shown in Figure 46-1.
<<Figure 46-1 about
here>>
Overview of Topics Covered
In Remaining Perceptual
Exercises
Exposure
Exposure occurs when a consumer confronts (or is
confronted by) a stimulus so that one or more of the sensory organs are
activated and information processing can begin. Exposure can be either random or involuntary, such as with broadcast commercials, or deliberate and voluntary, as with online information and print media.
At
the exposure level, the key consideration for the advertiser is reaching the
targeted customers by matching characteristics of the target market with those of a medium’s
target audience. Advertisements are then placed within media vehicles where
they are most likely to be encountered, such as next to interesting editorial
matter in a magazine or in a relevant section of the newspaper, as with
sporting goods ads positioned in the sports pages.
Attention
Following
exposure, the next step in information processing is attention—the degree to which the consumer focuses on the incoming
stimulus, thereby allocating information processing capacity to it so that the
sensations enter his brain for processing. Job one for any advertisement (or
marketing effort, for that matter) is to grab the prospect’s attention!
This
and the following exercise will focus on two aspects of the attention phase. First is the absolute threshold level—the minimum
level of stimulus intensity that is noticeable. This exercise concerns this
absolute threshold level as well as subliminal
advertising—advertising elements that are supposedly snuck in below the
consumer’s absolute threshold level or level of consciousness in an effort to
secretly influence consumer behavior.
A
second phenomenon of interest to marketers in the attention phase, covered in Exercise
47, is the just noticeable difference—the
level of stimulus intensity change that can just barely be detected by a
consumer, such as a slight price hike or miniscule cut in product quality.
Comprehension (Interpretation)
Exercises
48 and 49 will concern the stage of comprehension—the
consumer’s level of understanding and interpretation of the stimulus. Exercise 48 will investigate consumers’
use of surrogate indicators—shorthand
signals of product quality or performance, such as price and brand name, which
might or might not be valid indicators of the product’s nature. Gestalt
principles of perceptual organization—how the arrangement of the components of
a stimulus object affects the way it is interpreted by the consumer—will be
covered in Exercise 49.
The
final hurdle in consumer information processing is retention—the entry if information into long-term memory so that it
can be recalled. This will be the subject of Chapter 14 on learning.
The Absolute Threshold Level
Psychophysics and the Adaptation Level
Whether
or not a consumer actively pays attention
to a stimulus to which s/he is exposed is determined by a number of factors,
one of the most important of which is the level of intensity of the stimulus. Psychophysics is the study of the how
the physical environment is related to people’s subjective (psychological)
experience, i.e., the relationship between the nature and amount of a stimulus
and the sensation that it produces. This discipline investigates the absolute threshold level—at what level
of intensity people can just barely detect stimuli—and the differential threshold—people’s ability to sense changes in
stimulus intensity.
The
lowest level at which a person just barely detects a stimulus is known as that
cue’s absolute threshold level (ATL,
lower threshold level, detection threshold level). The ATL is the minimal
level of stimulus intensity that the individual can perceive, i.e., the point
at which a person can just barely notice that “something” is there.5
Remember the hearing tests you took back in grade school? The tone you could
just barely hear was your ATL for hearing. A dog whistle is below humans’
auditory ATL.
By
studying ATLs, scientists have discovered that our senses are very sharp. For
example, a typical person can see a candle flame at 30 miles on a dark clear
night (It’s not true that “On a clear night you can see forever”). The average
individual can also taste one teaspoon of sugar in two gallons of water and
smell one drop of perfume diffused throughout a three-bedroom apartment
(therefore, you need not dowse yourself with cologne for people to notice!).
Of
course, there are individual differences in such ATLs, so these are only
averages. Furthermore, one person might vary somewhat in sensitivity to stimuli
from day to day or from one situation to another. Knowing about such individual
differences, KFC ran ads emitting high-frequency sounds (the Mosquito Ringtone,
popular with teen mobile users) that very few people over 30 can hear, awarding
free boneless chicken buckets to the first 1,000 viewers who went online to
tell just when in the ad the tone played.
Despite
these impressive sensory abilities, our senses can only perceive a rather
narrow range of stimulus intensity. For instance, we are unable to see ultraviolet
rays, although bees can. Bats and porpoises can hear sounds two octaves beyond
our range. You can’t notice radar (radio waves), but a radar detector can.
Firms sometimes hire professionals with relatively low ATLs as taste testers or
to determine the efficacy of personal care products such as deodorants (testers
actually smell peoples’ armpits—it’s the pits!) and mints (they smell people’s
breath).
The Adaptation Level: A Changing Absolute Threshold Level
Sometimes
people’s ATLs change over time. Adaptation
(sensory adaptation, habituation) is the process of adjusting to or growing
accustomed to a frequently occurring stimulus to the point where it is no
longer noticed. For example, the first chilly day of winter that comes along
feels quite cold. However, after several days of cold you “get used to” the
chill so that it is no longer so uncomfortable.
Likewise,
stepping into an air conditioned store on a very hot day feels great at first.
But after several minutes, you adapt to the cooler level of sensation and no
longer notice it. When you enter a locker room, at first you choke on the smell
of “eau de locker room,” but after awhile it no longer bothers you. Unfortunately,
car safety belt reminders eventual become ineffectual: Although when you first
ride in a car, you hear the “ding, ding, ding” reminder to buckle up, after
awhile, it doesn’t mean anything to you.
The
adaptation level, then, is that
amount of stimulus intensity to which a person becomes accustomed. It serves as
a reference point or standard of comparison for changes in the level of the
stimulus. Consequently, at a noisy party someone coughing wouldn’t be heard.
However, in a quiet room where students are taking a test this same sound would
be startling.
How
is adaptation relevant to consumer behavior? Marketers must make sure consumers
don’t become adapted to marketing stimuli, such as their advertising or
packaging, so that they tune them out. This is accomplished by offering change
or variety in marketing cues.
Consequently,
most advertising campaigns, while featuring similar messages and creative
executions of that message, present variations in individual ads so that
consumers don’t become bored. Although Wheaties remains the “Breakfast of
Champions,” the individual sports stars appearing in the ads and on the package
continually evolve—Michael Jordan got old after awhile. In the area of product
development, new and improved
versions as well as line extensions
(new flavors, scents, styles, etc.) keep a product fresh and interesting for
consumers as well as provide variety.
In
short, consumers should “expect the unexpected.” The adaptation level
phenomenon explains why it is so important to use novel stimuli to “break the
boredom barrier” or avoid “the yawn factor.”
However,
marketers must be cautious in making radical changes, such as altering
ingredients in food or drink items or rapidly raising prices. Often the
adaptation level is preferred. The reason is that customers might better
receive evolutionary change than revolutionary change. For instance, with
rapidly rising gasoline prices in the mid-2000s, at first consumes experienced
sticker shock. However, the shock didn’t last forever, and people got used to
paying $3 a gallon rather than $2.
Following
its merger with Cingular Wireless, ATT&T Wireless decided to phase out the
Cingular name. However, they did so gradually over several months, beginning
with the tagline in commercials “Cingular is now part of AT&T,” followed
shortly thereafter by making the AT&T name more prominent, and eventually
dropping the Cingular moniker.
Marketing Stimuli and the
Absolute Threshold Level
Some Stimuli Should Be Above
the ATL
Of
course, marketers need to make sure that their important stimuli (ads and the
parts thereof, prices on products, etc.) are above the consumer’s ATL. This is
a big challenge in cluttered commercial environments. Too often ads blend into
the background like “audiovisual wallpaper”: People “see” it, but they don’t really see it; they “hear” it, but they
don’t really hear it.
Marketers
must therefore resort to tactics to get consumer attention. Examples include ramping up the volume on radio and TV
commercials or using other attention-grabbing techniques like shocking or
unique headlines in print ads. For example, “I was in love with a girl named
Cathy. I killed her” was a riveting headline for a public service ad against
drunk driving. Startling sounds like honking horns and ringing phones often
open TV and radio commercials to make sure the spots aren’t literally or
figuratively “tuned out” by the audience. Likewise, packages on store shelves
must rise above the shelf clutter and distinguish themselves via unique,
eye-catching graphics to visually pop off the shelves.
Other Stimuli Should Be Below
the ATL
However,
there are also instances in which marketers do not wish for consumers to detect
certain stimuli; they prefer to remain below the consumer’s ATL radar. You have
heard of the “fine print” in advertising disclosures, packages, and other
written materials. This is so tiny not just to save space but also sometimes to
unethically avoid catching the consumer’s attention. Similarly, the audio
disclosures in radio commercials that are legally required (“Offer void where
prohibited”) usually run at warp speed so that consumers can’t really
understand them.
As
another example, although consumers might not notice the music in a retail
outlet or service establishment, research shows that it can nonetheless
influence consumer behavior, with faster music speeding consumers up (as in a
crowded restaurant) and slower music making them move at a more leisurely pace
(such as browsing in a store).
Another
much-discussed tactic whereby marketers allegedly lurk below the ATL is the
case of subliminal advertising, to
which we now turn our attention.
Subliminal Advertising
Overview of Subliminal Influences
One
much-discussed tactic whereby marketers allegedly lurk below the ATL is the
case of subliminal advertising, one
of the most controversial topics in advertising. The word subliminal comes from combining two Latin words: the prefix sub (meaning below) with limen (threshold or limit, i.e., absolute threshold level).
Subliminal, then, literally means “below the
threshold of conscious perception (absolute
threshold level),” i.e., people cannot see, hear, or perceive a stimulus
object in any fashion. Consequently, subliminal
stimuli (subliminal messages)
are cues that activate one or more sensory receptors but are below the
threshold of perception (ATL).6
A
person’s subconscious perception of subliminal cues is called subliminal perception. Rooted in
psychoanalytic theory, the belief is that one can influence consumer behavior
by secretly appealing to the subconscious mind with words, images, or sounds.
Over
the last fifty-plus years, critics have claimed that advertising agencies use
these subliminal stimuli in a process they call subliminal advertising (subliminal seduction)—trying to manipulate
consumers by placing hidden images, words, or sounds in print, audio, or video
advertising media. The theory is that, although the stimulus is below the
consumer’s level of conscious awareness, somehow the subconscious is
nonetheless able to process the stimulus, and this can lead to
<<NL>>
(1) attitude change, such as brand preference, followed by
(2) behavioral change, like a product purchase or a store
visit.
<<END NL>>
However,
the advertising industry has consistently and vigorously denied running
subliminal advertising. Several marketers have even created ads poking fun at
the idea of subliminal stimulation. For example, a Seagram’s gin ad headlined,
“Can you find the hidden pleasure in refreshing Seagram’s gin?” pointed out a
bubble and said, “If you think this is just a bubble, look again.” A
tongue-in-cheek Absolut vodka ad featured a glass of vodka on the rocks
headlined, “Absolut subliminal.”
A
series of TV commercials for Sprite, playing upon Sprite’s coined word “Lymon,”
featured rapid cuts from scene to scene. “Welcome to sublymonal advertising,”
declared a voiceover for each spot. “For best results, do not blink.” Even the
advertising industry’s trade association, the American Association of
Advertising Agencies, has run ads claiming subliminal ads don’t exist and that
so-called subliminals are simply the product of overactive imaginations.
In
the remainder of this exercise you shall learn about five different types of
subliminal stimuli:
<<NL>>
(1) Subvisual
messages—briefly presented visual stimuli in motion media such as movies,
television shows, and video games;
(2) Embeds—subliminal
elements found in print advertisements;
(3) Incongruities
and suggestiveness—elements in
print ads that aren’t subliminal but perhaps still work at as subconscious
level.
(4) Subaudible
messages—accelerated and/or garbled speech in low-volume auditory messages;
and
(5) Backward
masking—reversed audio messages, usually inserted in rock music.
<<NL>>
You
shall learn that, while subliminal stimuli perhaps exist in some instances, subliminals can not be effectively used to
persuade or alter consumer behavior. Years of research have shown very
limited emotional effects of subliminal stimulation, and there has been no
support for its effectiveness in behavior modification. Nonetheless, at least
three-fourths of the general adult American population believes that subliminal
advertising is purposely created and used to sell products.
Bottom
line: If some marketers do use subliminal stimuli, they are wasting their
efforts and being unethically sneaky in the process.
History
and Description of Types of Subliminal Messages
During
the 1950s, the U.S. experienced the “red scare”—fear about the rise of
communism and its “mind control.” In this environment of alarm, stories began
circulating that advertising agencies were doing motivation research, some of whose findings were being used to
seduce customers with subliminal advertising to get them to buy merchandise
they neither wanted nor needed.
1. Subvisual Messages. The brouhaha
over subliminal advertising began in 1957 when a movie theatre in Fort Lee, New
Jersey hired the services of Subliminal Projection Company, run by the
originator of the term subliminal
advertising, James Vicary, His form of subliminal stimulation was subvisual messages—single-frame visual
images or words, of milliseconds in duration, implanted into a film (and now
also other electronic motion media). These are repeatedly flashed every few
seconds, notably in motion pictures, television shows, videotapes, DVDs, video
games, and on computer screens.
Vicary’s
firm designed a subliminal projection machine that was capable of flashing
unnoticeable messages within big-screen movies very briefly (for 3/1000 of a
second, every five seconds). For a six-week test run in the movie theatre, Vicary
alternated the subliminal messages, “Hungry? Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coke,”
exposing 45,699 patrons.
Vicary
held press conferences and claimed that the subliminals increased sales of Coke
by 18% and of popcorn by 58%. Subsequently, he had ad agencies lined up outside
his door ready to pay hefty retainer fees for his services. This episode came
to the public’s attention through Vance Packard’s allusions to it as one of the
advertising industry’s secret powers in Packard’s best-selling book, The Hidden Persuaders.
However,
there are several reasons to be suspicious of Vicary’s claims. He never
released a detailed description of his study. Nor has there ever been any
independent evidence to support his claims—all attempts at replication of his
study failed, including several efforts to influence behavior using televised
subvisual messages.
Moreover,
Vicary later disappeared after reporters began catching on to his fabrication,
leaving no forwarding address and no bank accounts. In an interview with Advertising Age in 1962, Vicary admitted
that the original study was a fabrication designed to help his struggling
business. And, despite the notoriety, no regulation or legislation has ever
been enacted against subvisual communication.
Nonetheless,
periodically there are reports of efforts to use subliminal messages in TV
commercials. For example, a 1970s TV ad for a children’s game called Husker-Do
included the subvisual message “Get it!” until some parents noticed and
complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This regulatory body
then issued a warning against further TV or radio subliminals because, “Whether
effective or not, such broadcasts clearly are intended to be deceptive.”7
Movies
have also been accused of planting subvisuals. In “The Exorcist,” a death mask
was flashed on screen to give audiences an extra scare. Disney movies have
frequently come under attack. In “The Little Mermaid,” a religious group saw a
suspect bulge on a character that appeared to be an erection. A wispy S-E-X was
found spelled out in the clouds in one scene from “The Lion King.”
During
the 2000 presidential election, Democratic officials and some advertising
experts accused the Republican National Committee of running a subliminal TV
ad. The phrase “bureaucrats decide” flashed around the screen. In larger print,
the word “rats” flashed for one-thirtieth of a second while a voiceover
criticized candidate Al Gore’s medical plan. Republicans claimed it was an
accident and only appeared once. An FCC investigation decided that no
disciplinary action was warranted.
Subvisual
messages have also entered the computer age, this time with an attempt to use
them for peoples’ benefit. For example, an Arizona company introduced
self-improvement software called InnerTalk that flashes the user’s choice of
9,000 subliminal messages briefly on the computer screen, regardless of the
program running. No one can confirm conclusively that InnerTalk changes
behaviors or even attitudes, but for $49.95, computer users can now bombard
their brains with hidden messages. Similarly, managers have programmed
computers to flash messages such as “work faster.”
2. Subliminal Print Ads: Embeds. Concern
about subliminal advertising died down until 1974. Then, Dr. Bryan Wilson Key
published his popular book, Subliminal
Seduction: Ad Media’s Manipulation of a Not So Innocent America. A second
book, Media Sexploitation, followed
in 1976.
Key’s
concern was with print media subliminal advertising. Most notable were embeds—hidden words and images, most of
which appeal to subconscious drives such as sex and the Freudian death wish (Thanatos). Key alleged that these faint
visuals were being placed in magazine ads via techniques like high-speed
photography and airbrushing. Today, digital manipulation is supposedly used as
well.
Allegedly,
the embeds were subconsciously perceived and could elicit drives such as sexual
arousal. This, in turn, supposedly made the products more attractive to
consumers, thereby positively influencing their attitudes and behaviors.
Key’s
most common findings of embeds included women’s breasts, male and female
genitalia, and death masks in the ice cubes of liquor ads. He famously found
the word “sex” as well as many unprintable (at least in this book!) four-letter
words emblazoned on people’s hair and beards. Key discovered couples in
compromising positions in floral designs. He even claimed that the word “sex”
was formed by the holes in Ritz crackers, making this delicacy taste even
better!
In
his third book, The Clam-Plate Orgy
(1980), Key described images of group sex and bestiality—tiny people and
animals writhing around in ecstasy during an orgy—on a pile of fried clams
depicted on a Howard Johnson’s restaurant placemat! His allegation was that,
“Merchandisers, by embedding subliminal trigger devices in media, are able to
evoke a strong emotional relationship between, say, a product perceived in an
advertisement weeks before and the strongest of all emotional stimuli—love
(sex) and death.”8
Key’s fourth book, The Age of Manipulation: The Con
in Confidence, The Sin in Sincere,
offered more
anecdotal evidence, such as a McDonald’s ad with a hand dipping a phallic –looking
Chicken Tender into sauce. Key hypothesized that the male homosexual taboo is appealed
to in many of these ads. Drawing on Freudian thinking, he claimed that when we
perceive these images subliminally but repress them, we are irrationally
attracted to the ad.
However,
there are problems with Mr. Key’s “findings” at both theoretical and empirical
levels. Conceptually, he offered no explanation for exactly how subliminal
advertising works. Key backed up his case with a hodgepodge of theories from
the fields of communication studies, media criticism, and Freudian psychology,
most of which is dismissed by the modern scientific community.
Key’s
illogic was evident when your author heard him speak at Stonehill College back
in the late 1980s. The charlatan confessed, “How this works, I don’t know. But
it must work, because advertisers keep using it.”
Empirically,
there is virtually no experimental support for the efficacy of subliminal
embeds. Key’s own “research” with his students lacked proper scientific
controls, as he has admitted. He simply asked how many of his students saw the
embeds he found in ads, and he considered their acquiescence as evidence.
It
is true that some psychology experiments have shown that subliminal stimuli can
influence high-level cognitive and affective processes (e.g., recognition of
and preferences for geometric shapes), although these are fleeting in nature.
Some studies suggest that human sensory organs pick up stimuli presented below
the threshold of consciousness and that people can process information without
being aware of it.
A
weak stimulus apparently produces a weak response that induces a feeling,
though not a conscious awareness of the stimulus. More recent research also
suggests that subliminally presented stimuli can influence behavior.
However,
these studies were conducted in artificial laboratory situations. And, the
effects are generally so small and fleeting as to be useless in altering
consumer behavior. Investigations have failed to show conclusive results in an
advertising context.
The
key (pun purely coincidental) issue of subliminal advertising is whether
subliminal stimuli provide advertisers with a tool to bypass buyers’ defenses
without their awareness, so that consumer exposure to subliminals results in
effective persuasion and manipulation the consumers’ behavior. The nearly
universal consensus is that this is not possible.
The
answer appears to be, “No,” for there are several other questions that Mr. Key
has been unable to answer:
<<BL>>
• Where is his documentation for the cognitive,
affective, and behavioral effects of subliminal advertising? All he offered was
anecdotal evidence based on what he and his students “discovered” in print ads.
As just noted, Key’s totally unscientific studies entailed leading his students
to “see” in ads the same UPOs (unidentified printed objects) he “saw.”
As the
ad industry has pointed out, such “findings” seem to be the product of
hyperactive imaginations. Whether or not erotic imagery has been deliberately
planted, a diligent search for a phallic symbol will probably uncover it. All
of us are able to “see” all sorts of things in clouds, mountaintops, trees, and
other objects. East Chicago officials once had to turn off a street light that
created a shadow some saw as resembling Jesus Christ. A grilled cheese sandwich
supposedly containing an image of the Virgin Mary was sold to an Internet
casino for $28,000. For more interesting tales, Google the words “Jesus,”
“eBay,” and “toast.”
• Why are there no witnesses to the preparation
of embeds? If subliminals are used by so many advertisers, why was Key unable
to quote just one of them on how they employ the tactics? Is there not one
unemployed ex-stimulator who can come forward with the truth, perhaps writing
an exposé or even a how-to book? Key never cited such an individual. In fact,
Jack Haberstroh, an advertising professor at Virginia Commonwealth University,
surveyed more than a hundred ad directors throughout the U.S., and not a single
one claimed to have ever worked on a subliminal ad!
• If subliminal stimulation is rampant and urges
people to buy, why don’t the government and other public service advertisers
use subliminal ads to make people stop taking drugs, abusing children, and
driving drunk? College professors could even use subliminal messages in their
overhead and PowerPoint slides and in the videos they show their classes to
encourage students to study hard, stop going to wild parties and staying up
late, give up smoking and excessive drinking, and be courteous and attentive to
and absolutely idolize their instructors!
<<END BL>>
The academic community, the
advertising establishment, and even government regulators all nearly
unanimously pooh-poohed the notion of subliminal advertising during the Vicary
and Key eras. But, the legend lived on.
3. Subliminal Print Ads: Incongruities, and Suggestiveness.
There
are two other types of print advertising sometimes described as “subliminal”
that don’t actually meet the definition of this term since people often are
aware of them: incongruities and suggestiveness. Nonetheless, they can at
times operate at a low level of awareness, perhaps even subconsciously
Incongruities are portions of ad containing an
inconsistency—two or more of its elements do not logically fit together. There
is something wrong with the ad’s picture that isn’t evident at first glance.
For example, an ad for Jantzen swimsuits included a female whose trunks were
unusually loose and contained a zipper fly, and the man with her wore swim
trunks matching her brassiere, implying crossdressing. Another ad for Benson
and Hedges cigarettes featured a protruding right hand that was placed at an
angle such that it could belong to none of the characters in the ad.
Several
advertising researchers have suggested that such ads lead to more information
processing as well as arousal, and consequently more favorable ad evaluations.
Also,
there are print ads containing suggestiveness—the
advertisement implies more than the written copy suggests. Although
suggestiveness is common in advertising, it isn’t subliminal because we are
supposed to notice the suggestive ad elements.
Suggestiveness
occurs when the message is not blatant, i.e., it isn’t spelled out explicitly
in words but rather is subtly implied via use of verbal language, body
language, color, and other perceptual devices. Such implicit communications
often include sexual innuendo—subtle
sexual messages.
For
example, a Snickers candy bar ad depicted a mom hugging her son, saying, “When
he comes home from school hungry, there’s only one way to satisfy him—and me,”
perhaps implying incest. A Levitra TV commercial featured a 40-ish woman
sporting a man’s dress shirt, which, to some observers, suggested she had just
engaged in sexual relations.
Unfortunately,
even some advertising people are guilty of this misuse of the term “subliminal”
and thereby perpetuate false beliefs in the industry’s practice of subliminal
advertising.
4. Subaudible Messages. The first
three categories of subliminal seduction concern visual media. However, the next two types of subliminal
communication involve auditory media.
Subaudible messages (subaudible
communications, audio conditioning, threshold messaging, psychoacoustic
persuasion) consist of
accelerated (time-compressed) and/or garbled speech played at a low volume and
masked under a “carrier,” such as music or ocean waves, so that the message can
not be consciously heard.
The
technique employs spoken words or messages repeatedly transmitted or broadcast
below the threshold of normal hearing. The claim is that, while the message is
unintelligible and therefore goes unnoticed at a conscious level, it is
processed at a subconscious level, leading to affective and/or behavioral
changes.
Department
stores in both the U.S. and Canada have reportedly reduced shoplifting by using
a “little black box” or sound mixer, like that employed by deejays, to fuse
bland “elevator music” with subliminal anti-theft messages, such as “I am
honest. I will not steal. I don’t want to break the law. If I break the law, I
will go to jail.” Sales organizations and athletic teams have employed
subliminal motivational tapes to rally the troops, and doctors have used them
to calm patients in waiting rooms. Also, self-help audiocassettes were popular
during the 1980s and ‘90s to assist buyers in breaking bad habits like smoking,
losing weight, and improving their willpower.
However,
subaudible messages in rock music have been blamed for encouraging destructive
behaviors like worshiping Satan or committing suicide.
While
there is mixed evidence of the effectiveness of such messages, researchers note
that only individuals who are predisposed toward what the subaudible messages
advocate will accept them. Hence, a normally honest person will respond to the
suggestion “I’m honest - I will not steal,” but a professional shoplifter will
not.
Subaudible
messages seem to work like hypnotism: You can subconsciously encourage people
to avoid or undertake certain behaviors only
if they are so inclined. Also, many researchers believe that subaudible
communications work due to the placebo effect: People expect them to work, and
so they do.
So,
the fears concerning subaudible messages in rock music destroying our youth are
largely unfounded, except perhaps in the case of listeners who are already
inclined toward what the messages suggest. For instance, the families of two
boys who committed suicide in 1985 sued heavy metalists Judas Priest for
supposedly placing in a song the subliminal message, “Do it,” that the
plaintiffs believed pushed their sons into suicide. However, after an
exhaustive review of this subliminal issue and many close listenings to the
song in question, the judge found in favor of the band and its record company,
CBS. He declared that scientific evidence was lacking and too many other
factors could account for the suicides, such as drugs, alcohol, and
dysfunctional families.
While
there are no reported advertising applications of subaudible messages, the
evidence suggests that this is for good reason: They would be impotent in
changing consumer behavior.
5. Backward Masking. Also known as
backmasking and audio reversal, backward
masking entails inserting an undetected message into an audio medium such
as a record, tape, CD, or DVD by playing the message in reverse. Although the
words can’t be consciously perceived when the audio is played in its normal,
forward manner, the claim is that these imperceptible communications are heard
at an unconscious level, thereby influencing attitudes and behavior.
Reported
applications have occurred in the world of rock music. The Beatles were among
the first to employ the technique. When your author was a teenager in the age
of vinyl, upon hearing certain media and word-of-mouth reports about the
existence of hidden backward messages in various Beatles tunes, he and some
friends tape-recorded those songs on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. When they
reversed the tape they heard such ditties as “Paul is dead,” “Turn me on dead
man,” and “I buried Paul.” However, this all turned out to be a public
relations ploy at a time when the group’s popularity had peaked and they needed
to revitalize their dominance.
The
1970s and 1980s saw an explosion in backward masking in rock music. The band
Queen had a tune called “Another One Bites the Dust” that generated attention
when it was reported that the song contained a reversed message: “It’s fun to
(or, in another interpretation, “We decided to”) smoke marijuana.” Led
Zeppelin’s epic “Stairway to Heaven” reportedly contained seven satanic
messages, such as “So here’s to my sweet Satan” and “Satan is Lord.”
Jefferson
Starship’s lyric “It’s getting better” translated to “Son of Satan.” Electric
Light Orchestra sang “On a voyage of no return to see,” which reversed to “He
is the nasty one/Christ, you’re infernal/It is said we’re dead men/Everyone who
has the mark will live.” The Car’s “Shoo Be Doo” came out as “Satan,” and Black
Oak Arkansas’ “When Electricity Came to Arkansas” turned into “Satan, Satan. He
Is God, he is God.” (To hear samples of rock music tainted with audio
reversals, go to www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Birdland/5430/revolutionrev.aiff.)
One
theory underlying backward masking is that selective cognitive processes
ordinarily screen out unwanted information. However, when data enters our brain
backward, it is not filtered, and somehow the subconscious can translate it to
become meaningful. Supposedly, when hearing these songs forward the brain picks
up the backward messages subliminally. Consequently, they can affect one’s
mind, actions, and personality.
Clergy
have claimed that individuals who listen to backward-masked rock music are more
likely to become drunks, drug addicts, sexually promiscuous, and Satan
worshippers. However, this overlooks the fact that these behaviors are most
characteristic of rock’s primary target audience: teenagers and young adults.
However,
researchers have shown this theory to be untrue. Humans simply do not have a
subconscious speech perception mechanism that can decode a reversed signal.
Remember that basic principle of marketing research: Correlation doesn’t prove
causality.9
It
appears that backward masking is ineffectual in influencing people and of no
value for marketing, other than stirring up word of mouth and publicity for
rock groups!
Conclusion on Subliminal Advertising
Public Fears are Unfounded. Although subliminal advertising is rare
and ineffective, the public continues to view it as a societal menace. Why is
this?
<<BL>>
•
At least since publication of The Hidden Persuaders, the advertising
industry has suffered a very negative image of being hucksters and manipulators
trying to control consumer behavior. However,
this belief denies consumer sovereignty—the
consumer is not a dupe to be manipulated but rather an independent thinker to
be served. It also runs counter to the marketing
concept—to be successful, a firm must give its customers what they want and
need, not what they don’t require and desire.
•
Sensationalism sells. An unfortunate
aspect of human nature is that people love to dish dirt and wallow in the mud.
•
P. T. Barnum once said people love to be
fooled and that “there is a sucker born every minute.”
•
People dislike the fact that advertising
conspicuously attempts to influence
(not manipulate) them. If folks can’t
explain certain emotions or purchases, or if they experience post-purchase regret,
it is more comfortable to blame mysterious forces at work than to take personal
responsibility.
<<END
BL>>
In
short, all of the evidence suggests that subliminal embeds do not hold the
threat of turning the public into mindless automatons or quivering globs of
compliance at the mercy of marketers.
None
of this is to deny the existence of occasional attempts at subliminal ads.
There will always be dishonest people doing deceitful things, such as sneaking
hidden messages into ads. The deliberate use of subliminal communication is
immoral because it is dishonest, violates the consumer’s right to know, and
tries to control human behavior in violation of free will.
Although
it is quite possible that certain prankster art people in ad agencies have
gotten their jollies by sneaking embeds into their work for fun (but certainly
not profit!), the widespread practice of subliminal advertising simply does not
exist. In those rare cases where it is used, it is relatively ineffectual.
Subliminals only work to some degree in the case of constant message repetition
(as with subvisual messages and subaudible messages) and where audience
members are predisposed toward the message.
It
is true that in tightly controlled lab settings, subliminals have produced mild
but fleeting emotional reactions and heightened existing drives. However, there
is virtually no research evidence supporting their effectiveness to alter
consumer behavior. A big gap exists between perception and persuasion when it
comes to subliminal advertising.
Pragmatic Difficulties Hinder the
Efficacy of Subliminal Messages.
Furthermore, there are quite a number of practical difficulties in using
subliminal messages:
<<BL>>
• Recall from earlier exercises in this book
that needs and wants cannot be created. Instead, marketers should appeal to and
satisfy existing drives, which they can heighten and influence only at a
general level. For example, a subliminal message saying, “Drink Coke” might
help induce thirst, but not necessarily for Coke—it could trigger a desire for
Pepsi if that is the consumer’s favorite cola, or even for water.
Therefore,
to change consumer behavior against consumers’ free will is impossible. Because
consumers remain sovereign, it is always wise to work with consumer
predispositions.
• Supraliminal
stimuli (ordinary stimuli, above
the threshold level) tend to overpower or nullify subliminal s (hidden
below the threshold level). Indeed, psychological studies demonstrate that a
strong stimulus produces a strong response and a weak stimulus a weak response.
• Perceptual thresholds are variable across persons
and over time for any one individual. Consequently, what is subliminal for some
will be supraliminal for others, and what is subliminal for someone today (say,
if the person is tired or feeling “blue”) could be supraliminal for that person
tomorrow.
To go
undetected by virtually everyone, subliminal stimuli would need to be at an
extremely low threshold level, perhaps too low to have even a subconscious
effect on most people. (Recall the parents who noticed the subliminal message
“Get it” for Husker-Doo.)
• People selectively screen out supraliminal
stimuli not consistent with their predispositions and probably do so for
subliminal stimuli too. In their
normally busy worlds, individuals do not typically give undivided attention to
a stimulus as subjects in subliminal experiments do.
• Since consumers subjectively interpret
stimuli, misinterpretation is likely. Was that message “Drink Coke,” “Drink
Cola,” “Drink Pepsi,” “Drink cocoa,” or “Stink Coke”?
<<END BL>>
Recall
how the ad industry claims that most so-called subliminal embeds are simply the
products of overactive imaginations. It bears repeating: We see and hear what
we want to see and hear.
Please—lose
no sleep tonight over being subliminally seduced by Madison Avenue.
Review Questions
<<NL>>
In-Class Applications
<<NL>>
1.
For each of the following advertisements, identify any evidence or
possibilities of subliminal advertising based on the three types of print ad
subliminal elements described in the Background: embeds, incongruities,
and suggestiveness.
Are these ads more effective through the use
of such possible subliminal elements or would they have been just as effective
without hidden messages?
For more information (or, at least, opinion)
on how these ads are manipulated, check out www.angelfire.com/rock/cpar/p2k/2ksep17paperless.html.
Written Applications
<<NL>>