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James Vicary is famous for conducting a case study on subliminal messages whereby he flashed “eat popcorn and drink Coca-cola” across a screen while movie goers looked on. His findings were that this type of messaging caused an increase in sales of popcorn and soda. Later, however, Vicary admitted that his study was made up. Though Vicary fudged his findings, other professionals have taken up the study of whether sublimated messaging has an affect on consumer spending.

Bahador Bahrami, a neuroscientist at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience University College in London, has discovered through laboratory experiments that sublimated messages do leave an impression on the brain. Using sophisticated equipment, Bahrami’s team of researchers discovered that the subconscious brain is aware of hidden messages and images, while the conscious mind is not.

Baharmi and his scientists found that when participants performed easy or routine tasks, subliminal messaging had a greater impact than when they had to perform tasks that took more concentration. They concluded that if there is any spare attention capacity in the brain, then the brain allocates that resource to the subliminal messages.

Johan Karremans of the University of Nijmegen, Netherlands, and his colleagues recently decided to again test the effectiveness of subliminal persuasion. They created an experiment that consisted of volunteers who were to be shown “silent subliminals” in an attempt to alter their choices of drink. Karremans and his team of researchers chose two brands that were equally popular and also had the same reputation as being “thirst-quenchers.” The brand names were known to all the study participants.

Part of the study asked the volunteers to partake in a few simple tasks. One group was shown the subliminals for one beverage while a control group was shown the name of another beverage. At the end of the image viewing, the volunteers were asked to make a choice between the two drinks and also asked how likely they would be to order that particular drink when out and about and if they were thirsty. Of those volunteers who said they were thirsty and had received subliminal messaging, those individuals were more likely to choose the first beverage.

Even though scientists have generally held the view that subliminal messaging remains unnoticed and therefore subliminal advertisements could not be effective, Baharmi’s study indicates that these messages are actually registered by the brain. Even when they are unaware, the human brain records subliminal messages. So does this mean that sublimated messages don’t work and have never been successfully used in advertisements? No.

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