Modern Media Barn: Thoughts

I remember, back in undergrad days, attending a lecture by Brian Wilson Key and his warning that hundreds of advertisers were practicing ‘’subliminal seduction.” Proponents of subliminal advertising believed that messages could be encoded below the threshold of recognition and still have an effect.
It might have started with cutting a single horrible frame (1/24 second) into a horror film to increase effect. The alternative was to cut an image of Coke and popcorn to increase sales. There were many others — most claiming some level of success. Of course, most doing the trials had a vested interest in its success. In the early 1990’s, an East Lansing, MI department store would randomly make non-subliminal but unexplained announcements which suggested store security was closing in on a shoplifter. A store employee admitted to me it was all theater.
Key took a different route. He tried to find subtle images worked into commercial advertising. His argument, “Why would advertisers do all this work if it did not pay?” In these pre-Photoshop days, if intentional, it would have been a lot of work.
The result placed Key squarely between a prophet and a dirty old man. He had to spend a LOT of time looking at images and seeing some pretty disturbing things: the orgy in a Denny’s placemat, skulls in ice cubes, and beautiful but subtly disfigured models. He maintained that the famous poster of Farrah Fawcett was made even more popular because her hair spelled out the word, “sex.” Funny, as a boy of a certain age at the time, I would have been sold by the swimsuit or the much less subtle nipple. For those reading this today, you must extrapolate to 1970’s standards.
As a student of broadcasting and psychology at the time, I tried to embrace the idea. However, I never could really get behind it. At that time, it was too difficult for the payoff. Today, it is difficult to see how the subtle images could compete with currently overt images. At best, I accepted that a subliminal message MIGHT cause a person to adopt a behavior they were inclined to do anyway (e.g., buy popcorn or not steal).
I go through this whole history lesson to set up my next entry — the new ‘’subliminal.” I would apologize for leaving you hanging but I have read this blog.