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Subliminal Messaging
Posted Date: 15 Mar 2008 Resource Type: Articles/Knowledge Sharing Category: General
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Posted By: Randy A. Sprouse Member Level: Bronze
Rating:  Points: 4
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Who here has seen the movie "Fight Club"? If you have, you have been exposed to a thing called subliminal messaging. There were many different instances during the film where the director of the movie inserted frames of sexually explicit images into the film. Unless you knew what you were looking for and watched the scenes in slow motions you would never know it happened. Apparently, this technique was used as an “artistic” tool to peak the audience’s attention at crucial parts of the movie.
Most of us remember an incident involving George "W" Bush. During the campaigns, the Republican Party ran a commercial in which they said that Al Gore's prescription plan "lets bureaucrats decide." Right then, the word "RATS" flashed on the screen. Bush defended the ad by saying he really didn't think it was intended to be "subliminal." Did the ad work? You tell me. He got elected, didn't he?
You might have heard that at movie theaters, they used to flash images ["popcorn"] onto the screen in order to encourage people to get up and buy something at the concessions stand. It worked.
At K-mart, when they flashed the message "PLEASE DON'T STEAL" onto their monitors in the stores, theft was reduced by about 30%.
Prior to the “tobacco free” movement of the 1990’s, subliminal advertising was used in many different aspects of the media in order to appeal to younger audiences. There was subtle images of company names and/or images placed deliberately for the purpose of appealing to a target younger audience. Some of the movies that contained these images were “Superman II”, “American Graffiti”, "The Muppet Movie", "Amazon Women on the Moon", "Robocop", "Tapeheads", "Dream Team", "Field of Dreams", "K-9", "War Party", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", and "Crocodile Dundee".
This is not accidental. We know that the ad companies spend obscene amounts of time and money creating each shot. Nothing is allowed in that wasn't premeditated.
By the way, the necklace is a Hebrew symbol of fertility. Nah, that's not suggestive!
In a multiple page ad, the "money shot" always stays on the side that your attention was initially drawn to. Think about it; when you flip through ads, you tend to focus on one side of the magazine. For most of us, it's usually the right side. But not always. When they make an ad, if they put the beginning on the left, and the end on the right, all of the readers miss their message.
Another example is that of a Ralph Lauren perfume ad that can most likely be found in a women's magazine. It is a 3-page ad, the first page features a young couple, the woman having long brown hair, they are standing with their pelvises pressed together and they are looking lustily into each others' eyes. The second page of the ad features the Ralph Lauren perfume, and the third page shows the girl with flushed cheeks staring into the camera, seen only from her bare shoulders up. This model is also seen on Ralph Lauren television commercials. Her cheeks are flushed, and she has a satisfied expression on her face. They conveniently chose to clothe her in a tube top, so that in page 3 you can't see a stitch on her. Remember, none of this is accidental. This ad evokes a primitive emotion. And they force us to assume that something happened between page 1 and page 3. And what's on page 2…the product that made it all happen.
To understand how subliminal messaging works, we have to understand the process in our brains which allows us to see. To understand how subliminal messaging works, we have to understand the process in our brains which allows us to see. First of all, your eye sees absolutely everything that passes in front of it. Every image is sent to, and received by, the cerebral cortex. This is an enormous amount of information. It's enough to make somebody go insane. But luckily, the cerebellum gleans through this information and narrows it down to a manageable level. So we only consciously pay attention to those images that are important in the current context. Now, the human eye cannot see anything that is faster than 1/30 of a second. Motion pictures use 28 frames per second, so one frame of a movie is just a little bit longer than it needs to be in order for us to see it.
In the Fight Club example, the reason we did not consciously recognize the image at first is because it was out of context. We were concentrating on the scene, so when that image flashed so quickly, it was filtered as "not important." Then we continued to concentrate on the plot of the movie, without ever realizing what happened. However, even when such images are filtered, they are still seen. And they are forever burned into our subconscious memory.
Another important factor in subliminal messaging is the decision-making process.
The normal decision-making process involves positive input, negative input, reflection, decision, and, finally, action. If somebody walks up to you and says "you're thirsty," you can consciously object to that, and say "No I'm not!" But with subliminal messages, since you do not consciously perceive them, you do not object to them. There is no negative input, nothing to reflect upon, no decision to make. We go straight from "input" to "action." The psychological effect of not objecting to something is the same as accepting it as fact.
Remember, the subconscious mind does not make choices; it records everything, good and bad, positive and negative.
What I want you to do is refuse to let yourself be controlled by advertisers, or anyone else who tries to take advantage of your base instincts. Hopefully, you've learned how to do that. Now that you know some of the different techniques that are used to influence you, you can use this information to negate the effects that they have on you.
You might think that subliminal messages are relatively harmless. But the fact is that they rob you of your freedom of mind. You should have the prerogative to decide whether or not you want a product, or how you feel about any given issue, without unknowingly having messages embedded into your brain. If you continue to passively ignore what advertisers (and others) are doing to influence you, you will forever be under their control. But, if you use this information to your advantage, you can take back something precious: your freedom of mind. You will be the only one in control of your thoughts, and charismatic strangers will no longer have the power to alter the path of your life. So, the next time you see an ad that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, or makes you feel anything, for that matter, it should raise a red flag in your mind. Then, take a second look. What you find may surprise you.
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