Subliminal Advertising: Fact or Fiction?

It was James Vicary who coined the term “subliminal advertising.” As you’ve no doubt heard, he’s the guy who claimed to have gotten people to drink Coke and eat popcorn by flashing suggestions on a movie screen too fast for the brain to record consciously.

The movie was Picnic, and the year was 1957. Vicary used an instrument he invented, called a “tachistocope” to flash the suggestions “Drink Coca-cola” and “Eat Popcorn” on the screen every five seconds at 1/3000th of a second. He claimed to have boosted Coke sales almost 20% and caused the audience to gorge themselves with nearly 60% more popcorn than usual.

While Vicary couldn’t repeat that stunt and later admitted he had falsified the evidence, the stage had been set.

Life is Just a Bowl of Clams

The height of subliminal ridiculousness was reached in 1980 with the publication of The Clam-Plate Orgy and Other Subliminals the Media Use to Manipulate Your Behavior by a man named Wilson Bryan Key.

The book was widely read, particularly at universities, where Key was often a guest lecturer. He was a Canadian native who earned a doctorate in communications from the University of Denver and taught journalism for a while at the University of Western Ontario. Key was a colleague of Marshall McLuhan.

It seems Key was lunching in a Howard Johnson’s restaurant when he noticed something eye-catching on the menu. He claimed that when you looked closely, a picture of the plate of Ho-Jo clams was really the portrayal of a sexual orgy featuring various human beings and a donkey.

I wonder if that’s where the term “happy as a clam” came from.

The Sexy Side of Products

In another example, Key found S-E-X spelled out by three ice cubes stacked in a glass of Gilbey’s Gin. He also saw the word sex printed on Ritz crackers. (Would you like some cheese to go with that, sir?)

Key saw sex in more places than Hugh Hefner. In just one whiskey ad, he found scorpions, the head of a rat, a white bird, a volcano, a mouse, a skull, three wolf faces, a lizard, a cat, a shark, a swan and dozens of “sexes”.

His contention was that, while the embedded words are not consciously apparent, they are unconsciously perceived and can elicit sexual arousal that heightens the attractiveness of products to consumers.

Key unlocked a myriad of unfounded notions, including one that said the unconscious mind processes subliminal messages at the speed of light. According to scientists, however, the fastest brain process is a mere 40 mph or so. Some days I think mine chugs along at around 10 mph at best.

While you might find Key’s sex sightings suspect, no one can argue that his imagination is lively.