Subliminal Advertising and the Perpetual Popularity of Playing to People’s Paranoia

Every 20 years, subliminal advertising pops back into popular culture. August Bullock (2004a) is the most recent “advocate” with his book The Secret Sales Pitch: An Overview of Subliminal Advertising. This paper reviews nearly 50 years of research on subliminal advertising and comments specifically about Bullock’s more recent publication. The literature repeatedly shows that most effects are only obtained in highly artificial situations, and no research has shown an effect that changed attitudes or impacted purchasing behavior.     

A meta-analysis of consumer choice and subliminal advertising

A meta-analysis is used to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of subliminal advertising to influence the consumer's decision between alternatives. A review of narrative reviews is provided to illustrate that sample size and effect size is seldom used as the basis for evaluating whether subliminal marketing stimuli are an effective means for influencing consumer choice behavior. The results of the meta-analysis indicate that there is very little effect. The resulting coefficient had a value r=0.0585, which places the effectiveness of subliminal advertising on choice between the impact of aspirin on heart attacks and the relationship between alcohol abuse and a tour of duty in Vietnam (Rosenthal, 1990). © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Journal of Advertising and the Development of Advertising Theory: Reflections and Directions for Future Research

In this article, I provide some thoughts that guided my decision making while I was editor of the Journal of Advertising (2003–2006). Specifically, I reflect on the definition of theory and how it has been and should be used in the advertising discipline. In particular, I attempt to distinguish between weaker (contextual) and stronger (universal) theories and present my views on how future research in advertising can proceed in developing useful theories within this domain.     

The spacing effect in marketing: A review of extant findings and directions for future research

The spacing effect refers to the advantage in memory for information repeated at separate points in time over information repeated in massed fashion. This phenomenon has been extensively studied in psychology and has a wide scope of application. In spite of its possible applications, particularly related to advertising effectiveness, the spacing effect and its underlying theories have received limited attention in marketing. Evidence suggests that encoding variability theory, the one most frequently cited in marketing to explain the spacing effect, cannot explain existing empirical evidence as well as two other theories, reconstruction theory and study‐phase retrieval theory. This paper reviews these theories, as well as extant research, and discusses implications for advertising and directions for future research in marketing. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Corporate crisis advertising: A framework examining the use and effects of corporate advertising before and after crises

While corporate advertising has been widely studied as a promotional tool, few studies have examined how it can be used in a corporate crisis situation. In 2013, Kim proposed a conceptual framework for examining stakeholders’ evaluation of pre-crisis corporate advertising, using the inoculation and reactance theory. The framework, published in Journal of Marketing Communications, suggested that pre-crisis advertising can increase audience resistance towards negative news of an organization and decrease audience resistance towards future corporate advertisements from the organization. The present study expands on Kim’s work to develop the corporate crisis advertising (CCA) framework. In addition to the inoculation and reactance effects discussed in Kim’s model, CCA aims to discuss the effects of corporate advertising on improving organization’s prior reputation based on halo effect, and how post-crisis advertising messages can be evaluated based on crisis theories. Our proposed framework provides a comprehensive view of the use of corporate advertising both before and after a crisis and is useful for organizations to understand the impact of corporate advertising on stakeholders’ evaluation of the organization in a crisis situation. Potential applications of CCA are discussed and directions for future research suggested.     

Rejoinder

Abstract

Studies investigating subliminal stimulation have generally held that such procedures are ineffective in an advertising context. This article provides a new outlook based on right brain processing. Evidence is presented that indicates that subliminal stimulation has impact when the stimulus is selected based upon the model presented.     

Telecommunications in the Information Age. Singleton,Loy A. Cambridge: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1983, 239 pp. $19.95

Abstract

A telephone survey was conducted among a national probability sample of 330 adults to determine consumer attitudes toward the use of subliminal stimulation techniques in a self-improvement product. Additionally, those most favorable toward the product concept were profiled. The study found consumers to be skeptical toward the use of subliminal messages for the purpose of self-improvement and concerned about being influenced to do something they did not want to do. Those consumers most favorable toward the subliminal technique had prior experience with computers and video equipment, were less educated, and had some family problems. Comparisons are made with prior studies of consumer attitudes toward subliminal advertising.     

Some Evidence on the Early Price Effects of Attorney Advertising in the USA

When the US Supreme Court gave attorneys in the US the right to advertise their fees for routine legal services, the Court assumed that such fees would fall as a result of attorney advertising. According to economic theory, however, it is not clear what impact seller advertising will have on market prices. A major research effort designed to measure the price effects of attorney advertising in the USA began one year after the Bates decision. Some of the major findings of that study are presented in this paper. While none of the study's results so far indicates that the price effects of attorney advertising in the short run are likely to be substantial, the results suggest that the level of routine legal service fees may fall slightly or remain unchanged in constant dollar terms as a result of attorneys' use of advertising to promote their services and prices.     

广告传播模式的变革:从显意识传播到潜意识传播

网络广告的出现使得中国广告传播模式发生了巨大的变革：传统的显意识传播逐渐被潜意识传播所代替。潜意识广告大致有五种类型：快速切换、背景反转、植入／置入、双关、声光学处理。随着认知神经技术在广告中的应用,以FMRI为代表的技术,使得潜意识广告的效果测量成为可能,尽管存在一系列道德上的争议。     

Nonconscious memory processes in marketing: A historical perspective and future directions

Nonconscious memory processes play a major role in influencing consumption, yet this topic is an understudied area within marketing. Within the general rubric of nonconscious processes recent marketing articles have focused on preconscious processing of advertising, implicit memory for brand names, and subliminal processing and choice. This article provides a historical overview of nonconsciousness by tracing its development in psychology and philosophy. Building on current work in this area, future research priorities are identified to enhance our understanding of this topic. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Role of Advertising in the Market Process: A Survey

The positive role played by advertising in the market process has been largely ignored by academic economists. It is only recently, since the modern economic revolution, that economists have realized the benefits of advertising and have joined the research agenda developed by researchers in marketing and other business fields. The present survey details the literature that examines the role played by advertising in lowering the ‘full price’ to consumers which allows consumers to maximize utility and allows the producers/retailers to maximize profits. The review begins with the seminal article by Stigler in 1960 which develops a (now famous) theory of the economics of information. Nelson's characteristics of goods and services are surveyed along with the extensions of other economists to the classification frameworks of Nelson and Porter. The survey follows the development of the theory of advertising in economics to the present day, and provides recent theoretical advances as well as empirical tests of these seminal theories.     

Persuasive advertising,autonomy, and the creation of desire

It is argued that persuasive advertising overrides the autonomy of consumers, in that it manipulates them without their knowledge and for no good reason. Such advertising causes desires in such a way that a necessary condition of autonomy — the possibility of decision — is removed. Four notions central to autonomous action are discussed — autonomous desire, rational desire and choice, free choice, and control or manipulation — following the strategy of Robert Arrington in a recent paper in this journal. Replies are made to Arrington's arguments in favour of advertising. It is also claimed that the argument developed by Philip Nelson, which concludes that even if persuasive advertising does override autonomy, it is still in the interests of consumers to be subjected to it, is seriously mistaken. Finally, some caveats concerning informative advertising are presented. The author has recently received the degrees of B. A. and B. Phil. at Oxford University, and is presently working on a D. Phil. thesis, in which an ideal utilitarian/perfectionist theory is developed. It is hoped that this theory will supply plausible solutions to a number of problems in practical ethics. He has had an article, The Argument from Marginal Cases, published in Journal of Applied Philosophy, II, 2, 1985, and another, The Avoidance of the Problem of Evil: A Reply to McGrath will be published this year in Analysis.     

Advertising and behavior control

Advertisers often have been accused of using techniques which manipulate and control the behavior of consumers and hence violate their autonomy. Some of these techniques are puffery, subliminal advertising, and indirect information transfer. After examining both criticisms and defenses of such practices, this paper presents an analysis of four of the concepts involved in the debate — the concepts of autonomous desire, rational desire, free choice, and control. Applying the results to the case of advertising, it is shown that advertising cannot be found guilty of intrinsically or frequently violating the consumer's autonomy in any of the relevant senses of this notion.     

Who’s messing with whose mind?

Regulation of advertising to children is receiving increased attention. We need to distinguish areas where practice needs reform from criticism based on flawed models of how advertising works and from wrongly perceived changes in advertising practice. This paper summarises the criticisms by Nairn and Fine (IJA, 27(3), 2008). It then sets out what seems to be reliable (i.e. the common ground) before raising concerns with other assertions. The argument that children cannot cope with advertising because their rational faculties are not yet developed collapses as it turns out, as Nairn and Fine concede, that the same applies for any age group. Maybe more controls are needed for product placement and/or advertising masquerading as editorial, but neither of these are areas where the rights of, or responsibilities to, children differ from adults. In other words, Nairn and Fine confound their concern for children with their antipathy to certain forms of advertising to all age groups. Nairn and Fine may also be confusing changes in advertising theory with changes in advertising practice. After reviewing other areas of contention, this paper concurs with the final Nairn and Fine recommendation, namely that the advertising industry should review self-regulation in regard to advertising to children.     

Consumer Attitudes toward and use of Advertising Content in a Small Daily Newspaper

Results of the study indicate that the advertising content of the newspaper in the present study is viewed as local news by its subscribers and consequently has the highest readership of any type of content in this paper. While it was assumed that the advertising content of this newspaper would be well-read, the magnitude of readership and reader-interest in advertising was surprising.

In regard to questions concerning the reader's attitude toward the amount of advertising carried by the newspaper under study, it was found that rather than feeling there was too much advertising in the paper, the majority felt that it was either “just right” or that they wanted more advertising in the future.

This article is based in part on a paper presented for the Advertising Division at the Association for Education in Journalism convention in Ottawa, Canada, August 16–20, 1975.     

The state of theory in three premier advertising journals: a research note

Despite its importance, little is known about the prevalence of theory in the literature on advertising research. Utilising a content analysis of the three premier advertising journals over an 11-year period, it is found that only 17% of articles have made explicit use of theory. Psychology is the discipline from which the greatest number of articles drew their theoretical frameworks, followed by sociology and economics – indeed, theories from marketing and advertising are in the minority. Limitations are noted and implications of the results are discussed.     

TV advertising engagement as a state of immersion and presence

Despite widespread theoretical and practical interest in advertising engagement, scholars and practitioners share little consensus as to what it is and how it can be measured. Guided by the theories of immersion and presence, this research investigates the experiential nature of advertising engagement in the television advertising context. Using survey data (N = 1,115 cases) on thirteen TV advertisements aired during two Super Bowl broadcasts, a definition of the construct is developed and a parsimonious, reliable and valid four-item scale for measuring experiential TV advertising engagement is produced. As conceptualized, TV advertising engagement is an experience independent of its antecedents and consequences, in which the viewer is psychologically immersed in and present with a TV advertisement. These conceptual dimensions are reflected in the four items of the produced scale.     

The Gay Family in the Ad: Consumer Responses to Non-traditional Families in Marketing Communications

This paper investigates consumer responses to gay families portrayed in advertising, drawing on critical visual analysis, reader response analysis and queer theory. Twenty-five consumers were interviewed about a selection of family oriented ads. Several themes emerged from the interviews, including straightening up – reading apparently gay images as heterosexual, or straight, despite rather overt gay signals. This important interpretive phenomenon seems to "interfere" with processing of apparently gay imagery, revealing interesting interpretive strategies. Findings are discussed within the advertising as representation research tradition, and illuminate interpretive strategies that consumers use when confronted with culturally sensitive images in advertising.     

Trends in Advertising Research: A Longitudinal Analysis of Leading Advertising,Marketing, and Communication Journals, 1980 to 2010

This study provides a longitudinal content analysis of advertising research articles in 17 top-tier advertising, marketing, and communication journals published over the past 30 years (1980–2010, n = 926). The study's purpose is to shed light on the direction and progression of advertising as an academic field by updating and extending Yale and Gilly's (1988) study of advertising research trends. Nine content characteristics of the journal articles were examined: (1) theory presence (theory driven versus not theory driven), (2) names, types (theory versus theoretical framework/model versus construct), and originating disciplines of theory, (3) topic areas, (4) media of interest, (5) research approaches (empirical versus nonempirical and quantitative versus qualitative versus mixed), (6) methods, (7) types of effects, (8) units of analysis, and (9) research implications. Changes in the content characteristics of journal articles were found across the 30 years analyzed in five-year intervals. Implications for the field, scholars, and advertising practitioners are discussed.