This was the era of paranoia about UFOs, Communism and brainwashing, so it really caught the public imagination…and the attention of the government Imagine: unethical advertisers could plant subliminal messages in consumers’ minds and trick them into purchasing products that didn’t want or need. It tied in nicely with the recently published book, Hidden Persuaders, where Vance Packard described the ‘secret powers’ of advertisers to manipulate consumers. This led to a flurry of headlines and a lot of consulting income for Vicary. Vicary claimed that sales of popcorn and Coke went up 57.5% and 18.1% respectively. During a viewing of the film Picnic, he claimed to have flashed messages saying “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Hungry? Eat Popcorn” on the screen for 1/3000 of a second at a time, far below the threshold of conscious perception by the audience. It all started in the summer of 1957, when an unsuccessful market researcher named James Vicary announced that he had conducted a “scientific test” at a movie theater in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The 4A’s Marsha Appel looks at the rise and fall of the greatest advertising myth of the 20 th century. If you work in advertising, chances are that someone outside the industry has asked you about subliminal advertising.
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