I
would like, first of all, to thank the Chairman for giving
me time to testify this morning on the subject of the proposed
BATF rules on the advertising of alcoholic beverages.
Naturally,
it is a subject of great interest to the American Association
of Advertising Agencies. We have 530 member advertising agencies
in almost every state of the nation. Our members place more
than 80% of all national advertising in America - and at least
that percentage of alcoholic beverage advertising on both
a national and regional basis.[Would
that happen to include agencies developing ads for Jim Beam,
Jack Daniels, Budweiser and others noted on this site?]
We
have already submitted a somewhat lengthy document on some
of the particulars of your proposed regulations. I would like
to confine my remarks this morning to one aspect of that proposal
- that is, the section that deals with "subliminal advertising".
Let
me quote from the proposed regulations.
"Due
to increased consumer concern over the use of subliminal
techniques in advertising, the Bureau believes that it should
state its position on these techniques. Five commenters
expressed concern over subliminals and desire a prohibition
against their use in alcoholic beverage advertisements.
Subliminal
techniques can take many and varied forms in advertisement.
These include placing a frame in a film which appears at
such a speed that the observer cannot consciously perceive
its presence, but subconsciously, the word or scene is registered
and can have an effect on purchases, or whatever the advertiser
wishes to convey to the observer A more prevalent form of
subliminals is the insertion of words or body forms, by
use of shadows or shading, or the substitution of form and
shapes generally associated with the human body."[
It is this latter type of advertising that is the principal
concern of the present web site.]
The
proposal then goes on to "propose regulations prohibiting
advertisements using any device or technique that conveys
a message by placing in advertisements images or sounds that
cannot be heard at levels of normal awareness."
We
would assume from this that there exists on the part of the
BATF a fear that advertisers in this category and their advertising
agencies are now or might someday use some form of "subliminal
advertising". This deserves a response from the advertising
community. It also warrants an analysis of what that kind
of advertising is, what the possibility is of its use and,
if ever used, what the likelihood might be of its success.
There
are several things in the BATF statement that upset us. The
first is the assumption that such techniques are in regular
use in advertising. [They probably are
not that common but that does not diminish the requirement
for advertising agencies to behave in an ethical manner and
for self regulating bodies such as the ASA in the UK to ensure
that they prevent such techniques being used.] The
second is the implication that restrictions already in existence
both inside and outside the advertising industry are not adequate
to prohibit the possible use of any subliminals.
[ If they were (are) why have they not prevented the abuse
of advertising privileges by the likes of tobacco and soft
drinks companies?] All, in all, the statement by the
BATF harms the image and the public understanding of advertising
by incorrect assumptions and implications.
Let's
take a closer look at what subliminal messages really are
- and examine their history in advertising.
Subliminal
means, simply, "below the threshold of consciousness."
Anything that is perceived below the threshold of conscious
awareness is "subliminal perception". A "subliminal
stimulus" implies a reaction as a result of that "subliminal
perception", a reaction that does not involve conscious
behavior.
A
"subliminal stimulus" could be a word, or an image
or a sound that is too brief or too small or too disguised
to be perceived by the conscious mind, but is perceived
by the subconscious.[Disguised is probably
the operative word here since that would reflect the concerns
related to ads containing embedded elements as discussed on
this web site and the subject of Rogers
and Seiler's article reported on the next page.]
There
is no doubt that the subconscious exists. The concept has
been recognized for more than 200 years. Freud wrote about
it extensively and brought it into popular usage. [
Meet Freud and his theories by clicking here.] And
two decades ago Wilder Penfield proved its existence during
brain surgery when he used electric shock to bring forth memories
from the subconscious mind that the conscious mind could not
recall.
And
that brings us to subliminal advertising. Does it exist? Have
there been hidden messages in advertising? Yes, there have
been. [ It is nice to have someone in
the advertising profession acknowledge this to be the case
- but as the next sentence indicates, such acknowledgment
is but a prerequisite for attempts to devalue critics.] But
the known attempts at subliminal advertising have been both
trivial and transitory. [To bring the
story up to date, would you consider attempts to manipulate
the decision making of drinkers and smokers, purchasers of
cars and food, trivial? And, if such attempts had been running
for years would you consider them transitory? Whatever the
truth value of Adams comments in 1981, they are no longer
true today.]
In
1957 we have the first recorded instance of subliminal advertising
when a research executive names [spelling error in original]
James Vicary used a tachistoscope, an extremely fast shutter
device, and flashed a message at 1/300th of a second on a
movie screen. His messages were "eat popcorn" and
"drink Coca-Cola". According to Vicary, it increased
popcorn sales by 57% and Coke sales by 18%. [See
the article by Rogers on the next section of this page.]
This would lead us to believe that it is easier to make people
hungry than thirsty. But Vicary was never able to duplicate
his results under controlled, supervised conditions - and
he soon disappeared from the scene. Whether he was involved
in a hoax or not has never been proven.
Shortly
thereafter, a motion picture producer proudly proclaimed that
he was using subliminal projection in his movie "My World
Dies Screaming", flashing the word "Blood"
on the screen to heighten emotion. That film was little noted
nor long remembered. [See
the Flickers page for additional commentary. Note that
TV commercials can also be subject to manipulative intervention.
At present these are not dealt with on the Subliminal World
web site as examples are relatively rare compared to print
ads. In additiona, they are time consuming to both find and
then to convert into a multi-media format for presentation
on the WWW. However, some examples are likely to be presented
on this site in 2003. ]
A
television station in Los Angeles experimented with subliminal
messages by flashing "Drive Safely" on the screen
during news shows. The accident rate in Los Angeles continued
without any noticeable let up. And in Wichita, Kansas, a local
television station attempted to convince a killer who was
at large with subliminal messages that he should give himself
up. It was not successful.
In
England, a BBC science panel show flashed a subliminal four
word news item during a show and asked viewers to identify
it. Of 430 replies, 150 claimed to have perceived it, but
only 20 got it right.
The
only known attempt at subliminal advertising by an advertiser
occurred some years ago when the Premium Corporation of America
inserted the subliminal words "Get It" in a television
commercial for a game called "Husker-Du". The company
claimed that it was inserted by an exuberant (but misguided)
young man from a production house in Minneapolis. The commercial
was removed from the air and history records that the marketplace
was not kind to "Husker-Du".
But
most of the existing fear of subliminal advertising has been
raised by a journalism professor at the University of Western
Ontario named Wilson Key (typing error - Kay - hand corrected
) who wrote a book called "Subliminal Seduction".
The book became voguish and is read in many university courses
on psychology and marketing. [It still
is widely read. Is this because it strikes a chord with people
who are to some extent aware that a proportion of ads make
use of secondary imagery?] It created concern about
mind manipulation and it inspired considerable paranoia about
subliminal advertising.
Mr.
Kay (spelling error in original) sees sex in everything. A
glass of ice turns into a sexual fantasy. [
See the discussion of Key and his views regarding one such
ad on the Classic Key
page.] A wine bottle is a phallic symbol. The Howard
Johnson's placemat shows clams that are actually human bodies
engaged in a wanton sex orgy. An ice cube in a liquor ad reveals
the letters S-E-X in the shadows, an incredible photographic
achievement since a professional examination of the original
photograph and the engraving plates reveal no retouching.
I
do not wish to belabor Mr. Kay (again misspelled) further.
But I suggest that we should not take too seriously anyone
who can sense an insinuation in every advertising statement,
and for whom a phallic symbol is anything longer than it is
wide. [ While Key seemingly overemphasised
the extent of such ads and their likely impact he nevertheless
did draw attention to a phenomenon that seems to be spreading
across the globe. I say 'seemingly' here because I do not
have access to a large sample of ads from the time period
that Key writes about. Samples of ads going back into the
1980's do not seem to contain a large proportion of ads containg
secondary images. ]
Now
let's conclude with some basic questions about subliminal
advertising.
Has
it ever been used? The answer
is hardly ever. The only recorded instance of its use in a
paid advertisement was the act of a single individual acting
without his company's authority - it was withdrawn by the
advertiser and it was not successful. Every other known use
has been either in test circumstances or for specific purposes
under controlled conditions. [This is
no longer the case, if it ever was.]
Does
it currently exist? We are
quite sure that it does not. [ As the
examples presented on this site indicate, the author is certain
that it has existed, at least throughout the 1990's and into
the years 2000 and 2001. Will it disappear of its own accord?
I doubt it.. Such ads still appear in late 2002, though the
longer running campaigns associated with tobacco and distilling
companies seem to have 'dried up'. Perhaps because they were
not particularly effective - but see the experimental
reports on the site - or because attention has been drawn
to their actions. ] As far as we know, it has never
been used by any of our 530 member agencies over the some
thirty years since it became a publicized phenomenon. In my
own career in the advertising agency business, I have worked
personally with hundreds of advertisers on thousands of advertising
campaigns. In not one instance have I ever heard a suggestion
- either from an advertiser or an agency person - that any
subliminal technique be used. And I have checked this experience
with many of my colleagues in the agency business - all of
whom agree. Our clients always wanted their advertising to
be as "liminal" as possible.
Is
it legal? Well, to begin
with, it is certainly not ethical.[
I strongly agree at this point with Adams.] It is in
strict violation of the advertising code of the National Association
of Broadcasters. The FCC has made it clear that any station
permitting the use of subliminals will lose its license, stating
that the "use of subliminal perception is inconsistent
with the obligations of the licensee . . . and broadcasts
employing such techniques are contrary to the public interest".
Also, there is no doubt that the Federal Trade Commission
will not tolerate subliminals, being charged with the responsibility
for eliminating deception in advertising.
Would
it work if it were used?
Probably not. There is no convincing evidence of the effectiveness
of subliminals. Psychologists are not agreed that subliminal
stimulation can initiate subsequent action and certainly not
commercially or politically significant action.[But
psychologists only carry out a limited set of experiments
into subliminal perception, not advertising..Twenty years
on from Adams' statement it seems reasonable to note that
commercial organizations are much more pragmatic and have
millions of customers on whom to test their ads. Psychological
studies, additionally, do report that subliminal stimuli change
attitudes but not behaviour. Is this really all that different
from advertising stimuli. Most ads do not influence behaviour
and their influence can only be determined by comparing the
behaviour of groups of individuals exposed to ads with those
who do not see them. In each group only a small proportion
of individuals are likely to make decisions influencing purchasing
behaviour - and this over a period of time. Sales data reflect
such influences. Psychologists cannot obtain such data so
comparisons between real life ads and experimental stimuli
are thus not truly comparable. However, one should ask, 'Would
companies waste their time, money and effort in the use of
'subliminal' techniques that they did not evaluate and if
they were not commercially effective?] And there is
nothing in psychological testing to suggest that actions could
be produced against a subject's will [except,
in some circumstances, when under hypnosis.] or more
effectively than through normal recognized messages.[They
do not need to be more effective, simply cost effective.
Additionally, when one is considering subliminal or secondary
imagery conscious decision making has been 'bypassed'. There
is thus no will power involved in countering the manipulative
influences.]
Is
it worth worrying about?
Hardly. We are convinced that there is no subliminal advertising
in America today. [This statement would
definitely not be true if made in the year 2001 rather than
1981 and an adequate definition of subliminal advertising
were provided. Such a definition need not incorporate ads
containing secondary imagery. But if secondary imagery were
excluded from such a definition then professional associations
would have to address the very similar issues with regard
to secondary imagery. At present they do not, tending to rely
upon blanket denounciations of subliminal advertising..]
Those who continue to eagerly pursue the search for it are
clearly on a witch hunt, and their endeavors have produced
no respectable evidence that it does exist.
[Try this web site out for size. It probably fits the latter
part of the preceding sentence. Whether it is a witch hunt,
viewers can draw their own conclusions..] Surely there
are better and ;more profitable pursuits for concerned consumerists.
Should
it be included in these BATF regulations?
We think not. We believe that it is simply not necessary,
and that its inclusion creates an incorrect impression of
advertising's non-use of this non-technique.
But
if this regulation is put into effect by the BATF, we hope
that you will do so with a full awareness that you are taking
another gratuitous swipe at the "straw man" of advertising
- and that you are making illegal what is illogical - and
that you are ruling against what advertising has already ruled
out - and that you are issuing your warning to the already
unwilling.
Thank
you for your time. I hope that the 4 A's sentiments on this
subject have not been left with you too subliminally. For
advertising people learned long ago that the best way to say
a thing is to say it - up front, on top and above board,
where it belongs.[But unethical companies
will seemingly use any means at their disposal to stay ahead
of their competitors. Additionally, the statement is clearly
out of date as most ads in the beginning of the 21st century
are not up front. Ads now reflect lifestyle issues and make
very few claims for products or services. In other words,
ads rely upon imagery, both covert and overt, together with
verbal and non-verbal forms of communication, to influence
viewers. ]
Now
I'll be happy to answer any questions. Out Loud. [O.K.
Question: What is the purpose
lying behind the application of embedded elements in many
of the Marlboro ads produced for Philip Morris? Stock
Answer: If these ads do exist then they are not effective.
But, if they are not effective, could Philip Morris tell us
why were they produced over a period of at least 5 or 6 years,
perhaps longer?]