See, I think the future is not subliminal messaging.
It's sublatent messaging.
Sublatent messaging?
BUY STUFF AT SCAMSTUFF.COM
That's horrible!
[laughing] No?
That's the equivalent of a pop-up ad.
Yeah! A verbal pop-up ad?
It's like a human pop-up ad.
♫ Because I'm a Modern Rogue! ♫
[synthetic voice] Subliminal Messaging
When was the first time somebody used the phrase "subliminal messaging?"
As I understand, it was 1957. A man named James Vicary, who was a market researcher,
and he spliced in "drink coke" and "eat popcorn" into the reel of a movie, and apparently there
was a big uptick in sales.
Okay, now I had heard that that was completely non-scientific and it was completely self-reported,
which is kind of code for "not true!"
It was a hoax.
Oh, it was?!
It was a hoax, yes. But, it introduced it into the public lexicon. It made everyone
afraid that advertisers were controlling their brain.
So what's not a lie, is the fact that laws were passed forbidding the practice of placing
subliminal messaging into advertising content.
Yes, but that didn't stop people.
Oh, wait what?
Yes!
[incredulously] But there's a law!
There are lots of laws, Brian!
I'm sorry, "Hello, Brian, I'd like to introduce you to a show. It's called The Modern Rogue."
So the whole question about whether or not subliminal messaging works is complicated,
because there's so many different type of alleged subliminal messages. You could do
subaudible messaging, where something's very, very quiet, or backmasking, which we figured
out is largely total BS. But most people tend to think of subvisual messages, this is stuff
that's flashed so fast that the conscious mind can't read it, but that some part of
the brain seems to pick up a statistically significant impression from the messages that
are embedded.
They also have things that are hidden in still images that you won't notice right away, but
is allegedly worming its way into your subconscious.
So you're talking about the hidden arrow inside the FedEx logo?
Yes, or the Tostitos logo, where it's two friends enjoying a bowl of salsa, or maybe
a ritual sacrifice, I don't know.
See, I like that better, because I was afraid you were going to say T I T. It was like a
sex sells thing.
Of course you were thinking that, but it's funny that you mention that, because a lot
of the times people find subliminal images where there probably wasn't anything intended
by the advertiser.
Stuff like the Lion King "sex" star thing.
♫ ♫
Yes! Or "sex" in the Pepsi cans from the '90s when you stack them.
See there's two questions. Number one, is this intentional? Number two, even if it is
intentional, does it work? And I think that just like the backmasking, a lot of those
examples are just a case of being primed to look for a certain thing and then you find it.
Precisely. So everyone was afraid of it from the '50s, and especially in the '70s, onward up
until maybe around the early '80s, when a bunch of research came out and they said,
"This really doesn't do anything."
Now that's not to say it's not possible to effect your purchasing decisions beyond the
conscious level. They call that superliminal advertising. Stuff like, when you go to the
grocery store and you hear French music playing. There's a statistically significant increase
in French wine sales when that happens. Same thing during the holidays, whether it's holiday
music, or high-intensity music. They're playing the Flight of the Bumblebee and you're just
running around buying stuff, that is all very, very intentional. In fact, when I worked at
a movie theater, we had orange countertops installed, because in thousands of thousands
of A/B trials, orange countertops outsold magenta or lime-green... I guess you could
tell this was Cinemark in the late '90s.
Don't you ever bring Front Row Joe up to me ever again.
I love Front Row Joe! No?
I will cut him. I will cut his *face*.
♫ ♫
There's actually recent research indicating that, oh, maybe there is something to subliminal
advertising, but it can't control you, it can just influence you.
So when you say there's something to it, we're not talking about forcing people to do things
they don't want to, or buy things that they normally wouldn't. We're talking about in
large-scale trials, a statistically significant difference between using subliminal images
versus not.
Right. One example has researchers giving subjects a brick, and they have to think of
how many uses that they can get out of this brick. People that were subliminally flashed
the IBM logo, got this many uses out of it, people that were subliminally flashed the
Apple logo, got this many uses out of it.
No kidding! So it activated this thought of like, "Be creative, be original, think outside the box."
- Precisely. - Wow! That's brilliant.
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that, where it's evidence that it doesn't create a need,
but it does influence you trying to fulfill a need.
Now along those lines I would imagine that much more effective than a subliminal image,
would be for me to say, "Be really creative. Think about Apple." Like, that's something
that's not subliminal at all, but I suspect would have an even larger impact.
You would imagine so. I don't know though, because I've never seen any research about that.
Yeah, well I just made that up. Hm. That's called a hypothesis!
Some of the other examples, if we look at this, like, SFX Magazine. The magazine is clearly
"SFX," but look how they pose these models. What do you think of when you see that title?
Oh of course. No, you complete the image and you see the word "SEX." Whether or not this
actually works, I don't know, but my guess is that out of the corner of the eye, if I
saw this magazine I would say, like, "Is that magazine called SEX?!"
I would like a subscription to this primitive form of communication!
One that I thought was particularly interesting was the Marlboro Formula 1 car.
Yeah, I'm guessing for whatever reason they didn't want to put the actual Marlboro logo.
Because I'm sure in different countries there's restrictions about advertising, so instead
you have this arrangement of bar codes that visually, out of the corner of your eye, as
this thing is speeding past is going to look pretty much what a highly blurred out Marlboro
logo would look like?
Yeah, and that's an iconic image that's been around for decades. And so it immediately
makes you think, "Augh, I've gotta have a smoke!"
There was also a simplistic board game called Husker Du in the '60s.
"Hūsker Dū! Another fine product from Picam!"
They were actually in trouble with the FCC for planting frames inside their commercial
that said, "GET IT!"
- Really?! >> Jason: Yeah.
In the '80s, there was a cartoon based on the show Alf, and they had one explosion,
and for one frame in there, it showed this image of just Americana.
It had the flag, it had the statue of liberty, it said the word America. And they busted
them, they said, "What are you doing?" And they were like, "Well, it's an explosion,
we just wanted something that would maybe give a little bit of extra pop." And it wasn't
illegal, because it wasn't an advertisement, but it makes you wonder how many other cases
like that are out there.
Let's find out ourselves, right now, with our unwitting subjects.
Yeah! Right here in this video, we put a whole bunch of subliminal messages that hopefully
have primed the folks at home, to either think of the heads side of a quarter or the tails
side of a quarter, because they're going to be given a choice right now. Go ahead and
fill out this poll, choose either heads or tails. Don't go necessarily with what your
favorite is, but just which ever one feels right, and it'll be interesting to see whether
or not the priming, the subliminal images that we've used makes any difference at all.
Once you guys have voted, then go out and you can actually scour through the episode
and find all the individual messages that we hid in there.
Then you will understand just how much we control you.
Which is doughnut, baby.
Which is zero, absolutely zero.