Thus was demonstrated the awesome power of “subliminal advertising” to coerce unwary buyers into making purchases they would not otherwise have The result of displaying these imperceptible suggestions - “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Hungry? Eat Popcorn” - was an amazing 18.1% increase in Coca-Cola sales, and a whopping 57.8% jump in popcorn purchases. The messages each displayed for only 1/3000th of a second at a time, far below the viewers’ threshold of conscious perceptibility.

Vicary placed a tachistoscope in the theater’s projection booth, and all throughout the playing of the film Picnic, he flashed a couple of different messages on the screen every five seconds. Lee, New Jersey movie theater during the summer of 1957. It was James Vicary who coined the term “subliminal advertising.” Vicary had conducted a variety of unusual studies of female shopping habits, discovering (among other things) that women’s eye-blink rates dropped significantly in supermarkets, that “psychological spring” lasts more than twice as long as “psychological winter,” and that “the experience of a woman baking a cake could be likened to a woman giving birth.” Vicary’s studies were largely forgettable, save for one experiment he conducted at a Ft. Marketers who could reach into the hearts and minds of American consumers soon found consumers’ wallets to be within easy grasp as well. Advertisements that focused on consumers’ hopes, fears, guilt, and sexuality were designed to persuade them to buy products they’d never realized they needed. Although Packard did not use the term “subliminal advertising,” he did describe many of the new “motivational research” marketing techniques being employed to sell products in the burgeoning post-war American market. “subliminal advertising” began with the 1957 publication of Vance Packard’s book, The Hidden Persuaders.

Subliminal messages in ads