Week 8 EOC: Subliminal Advertising

      Subliminal advertising--hidden messages embedded in ads--is considered a deceptive business practice by the Federal Trade Commission. Yet a legal kind of "subliminal" persuasion happens every day. Shoppers are regularly encouraged to buy by appeals to their senses or unconscious assumptions. I recently carried out a series of research experiments to uncover the ways advertisers burrow beneath our rational minds to get us to pull out our wallets. Here are five techniques used to mess with our minds that you should know about. Some TV remotes and MP3 players on the market today would weigh half of what they do if they weren't stuffed with completely useless wads of aluminum. Customers believe the heavier objects they're holding are more sturdy and substantial. As a result, they're willing to pay a higher price for them.This simple act, which caught on like wildfire, is generally credited with helping Corona overtake Heineken as the best-selling imported beer in the U.S. market.
"the company is now moving forward with a ‘multifaceted campaign’ aimed at conditioning youngsters to be loyal enthusiasts of Shell products" (1)

The more stressed-out we are by the financial crisis and other problems, the more we unconsciously adhere to familiar, comforting rituals. Marketers know this full well and exploit it.

Music also can direct us to certain products.
In fashionable marketing circles, it has become acceptable again to speak openly about harnessing consumers’ brain waves for commercial ends” (2)

 For example, it can determine what kind of wine we pick up from the shelves. A large food manufacturer once tested two different containers for a diet mayonnaise aimed at female shoppers. Both containers held the exact same mayo, and both bore the exact same label. The only difference? The shapes of the bottles. The first was narrow around the middle and thicker at the top and on the bottom. The second had a slender neck that tapered down into a fat bottom, like a genie bottle.

Credit: 

1)http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp

2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6232801/Subliminal-advertising-really-does-work-claim-scientists.html