Cover-ups
I
f you take either of the front page covers of these
two magazines at face value they appear
pretty innocuous. Wilson Key, Wilson B Key, Wilson Bryan Key, however,
contended that embedded on the face of Colonel Gadaffi were the letters
of the word sex. And indeed one can perceive what seem to be scars on
his forehead and check that bear a great degree of similarity to the
letters S and X. The S has been highlighted on the rollover cutout illustrated
below right. Similar allegations were made about
various Playboy covers and newspaper illustrations in the popular press.
In
general, as most of the pages on this site indicate, the goal of the
present author has been to identify consistent
usage of manipulative and 'subliminal' advertising. Little effort has
therefore been devoted to seeking embedded lettering on magazine covers.
But one recent example would seem to indicate that a tendency to touch-up
magazine cover artwork might still exist.
The
surprising thing about the current example from B magazine is that the
letters are embedded on an image of Robbie Williams, current heart-throb
of virtually every woman with a pulsating heart: if
the caption on the magazine is anything to judge his sex appeal by (
namely ' 9 out of 10 women would cheat on their boyfriends for Robbie
Williams' ) then there would seem little need to have his picture doctored
as a means of influencing viewers.
The
embedded letters on the B magazine cover were initially presumed to
have been added to the picture to provide additional appeal
to the magazine, not Robbie Williams himself. But some other pictures
of Robbie raise doubts about this initial judgement. They appeared in
another magazine. The second set of photographs were taken by a different
photographer and appeared in the December/January
edition of Nylon. As the illustrations alongside and below indicate,
the photographs were not intended to be considered as natural photographs:
one for example depicted Robbie as a tailors dummy,
complete with hinged joints, etc. Such alterations make it seem likely
that other alterations to produce effects similar to that of the B magazine
cover could have been made to the original photographs.
The
photograph on the left offers, as with that on the B cover, the possibility
of perceiving lettering embedded in the chest
hairs of Mr. Williams. The 'backdground' to the tattoing on his arm
in the photograph below also offers a similar set of cues but would
need to be seen in the original before such cues were perceptible. In
each of these cases one can consider that projection might be at play
- and the judgements were simply based on imaginary fabrications - but
the author considers this relatively unlikely. The source of the embedded
elements would seem to be Robbie Williams image makers, apparently operating
on the belief that such embedded artwork influences viewers.
 Whether
or not such embedded artwork is effective can perhaps be judged by the
sales figures for the 'new look' B and Nylon magazines. Confounded as
the sales figures would be by the appeal of Mr Williams to his fans
(and the claim that B magazine has a 'new look') they might nevertheless
still give an indication of whether 'subliminal' embedding increases
the sales of magazines.
Watch
this space to find out if additional examples of embedded artwork have
appeared on the cover of B in recent months - or if additional pictures
of Mr. Williams are acquired bearing embedded lettering.
The
edition of B referred to above also contained a rear page ad for Archers
Peach Schnapps that appeared to have been doctored (illustrated right).
Although nowhere near as clear as on Robbie Williams chest, there is
an indication that the 'shadow' appearing in the top centre of the models
shirt is also composed of overlapping letters.
The
dark 'E' in the centre is clearly visible. And guess which other letters
might be present? Additionally, one might note a figure more familiar
to viewers of spirit ads (see Jim Beam,
Jack Daniels and others on this site). A rather
faint but garish shark, with jaws agape, can be percieved thrusting
out from between two glasses.
There is yet another 'face' in the glass on the left. Both are facing
towards the bottle of Archers.
Another
Archers ad appeared a month later. It had also been doctored. 
Superficially,
the overall message may seem to be related to having fun, given that
it appeared during the festive season, the elderly gent in the photograph
is wearing a boa, and the Archers caption is once again 'Come Out To
Play'.
However,
never jump to hasty conclusions where ads are concerned, especially
ads for spirits and other drinks. In this case, find a copy of the ad
and look more carefully at the contents of the four glasses. Each contains
a representation of a dog's face instead of the expected ice cubes (though
other interpretations are possible). In
the larger extract from the ad, shown on the right, the clearest face
is to be found in the glass to the top right.
Note that not all of the 'dogs' appear to be friendly.
Whoever constructed this ad would again appear to be playing, in part,
to the same type of aggressive drinker that other drinks ads also covertly
seek to influence. Either that or the Archers ads are attempting to
trigger anxiety in the hope that Archers will be consumed as a means
of countering that anxiety.
Come
out to play, indeed!

More
Ads from the Archives. Click here for AAA &
Seagram's. Click here for Wilson Key.
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