Advertisement Analysis
Prepared for:
Professor D. ThropeMKT500 Marketing Strategies
Prepared by:
Christie Mathew
May 23, 2014
Subliminal Mind Programming by Advertisements
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZeNubFcKtg - McDonald’s Commercial - I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FG7gE2CIbo - McDonald’s Commercial – II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMzbwa6PvEE - McD’s Subliminal Image on Food Network https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnkg-yCPryE - 1960’s Subliminal National Anthem (In Slow Motion)
Introduction to Subliminal Mind Programming:
Subliminal advertising is all around us in plain sight and we see those types of commercials all the time through media. Subliminal messages in advertisements come from the idea of steganography.
Steganography is the art of writing hidden messages. The difference in steganography and subliminal messages is steganography is mostly used to completely hide the messages so only the person aware of the hidden messages has the ability to decipher or discover it while subliminal messages are a form of programming.
Subliminal messages can bypass the conscious paradigm and directly influence the unconscious level of human brain without even realizing it. Verbal or visual commands can trick the brain into wanting any particular product
Subliminal Images in McDonald’s Old Commercials:
McDonald’s old commercials are the classic examples of subliminal manipulation. In many advertisements random images flashes for a very little time that our conscious mind doesn’t realize it. It happens in a matter of micro seconds. When slowed down we can see these images coming into life frame by frame.
In the first advertisement, we can notice that when its speed is slowed down, a Marlborough’s logo appears and it’s not a surprise that many kids had been reported on starting to smoke at an early age in that time.
In the second advertisement, same subliminal manipulative technique has been used but this time it’s Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is widely served in fast food restaurants all around the globe. Every huge corporation is in some kind of tie-up with another huge corporation. And this was just the beginning of subliminal programming.
As you can see in the third video how a food network used McDonald’s logo in the middle of their show just to effectively target their viewers and push their ideas through these images. Subconscious mind would register these unprocessed images that have bypassed the conscious mind and stores the hidden message from that image. These images and messages can alter our nature and can affect our behavior.
By ‘repetition’ of this type of clips over and over again on television, a brain can be programmed and thus alter its belief system.
The Legal Status of Subliminal Communication in America: As a very classic example of subliminal manipulation we might want to choose the 1960’s national anthem which was fully loaded with visual subliminal messages appearing and vanishing behind the subtitles. Those messages were purely governmental agendas and meant to enslave American people’s minds.
People came to know about their basic techniques to “brainwash”. This led the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to ban the use of subliminal messages in advertisements. The proposed policies also prohibit the use of subliminal technology in broadcast, recorded and filmed productions presented to public. So far, state and federal courts have generally ruled against the use of such manipulative advertising.
The Federal Communications Commission revokes the broadcast license of any company that can be proven to use subliminal messages. The Bureau of