What Is Subliminal Advertising?

Name of Researcher: Rohit singh and Ritu Sand
Project: Independent Research

Title of Research: The Effect of Subliminal Advertising and its influence on
consumer buying behavior with reference to Young consumers of Surat city.
INTRODUCTION
What Is Subliminal Advertising?
Subliminal advertising involves what your senses can perceive consciously or

subconsciously. To understand the subliminal definition, you should know that
there are two kinds of stimuli: supraliminal stimuli, which are above the
threshold of what the average human’s senses can consciously perceive, and
subliminal stimuli, which are below the threshold of what the average human’s
senses can consciously perceive. Subliminal stimuli register just beyond the
limits of your conscious perception, which isn’t to say that you won’t perceive
them at all. You can see, hear, feel, taste and smell subliminal stimuli, but they
will be so subtle that you won’t be aware of them, unless you’re looking, of
course. The idea is that, by passing messages right by your conscious
awareness and straight to your subconscious, it is possible to directly
influence you to do what the message wants you to do. It is understandable
that, given this sensational idea, advertisers would want to try it out on
potential customers.
The Subconscious vs. the Subliminal
The term "subliminal" often misinterpreted. A message that has an influence

on a person’s subconscious is different from a subliminal one.
The most basic definition of subliminal messages is that they are right below
the threshold of what you can consciously perceive. Psychologists call the
threshold the Absolute Threshold Level, or the ATL. Because the ads are
aimed far beneath that level, you cannot perceive them in the moment, but
only by, say, slowing a video down, or analyzing a piece of audio.
People often think subconscious influence is subliminal influence, which is

wrong. To clarify, both supraliminal and subliminal messages can have an
influence on the subconscious mind. The only major difference is that
supraliminal messages can have both conscious and subconscious influence,
while subliminal messages can only have subconscious influence. As long as
you can see or hear a message but you’re not conscious of hearing and seeing
it, that message is subliminal.
Subliminal advertising and types of subliminal ads:
Subliminal advertising which can include half Sexual actions, Metaphor,

Celebrity Endorsement, Background Language, Cult feeling etc. Pornography
and Sexual actions in advertisements may help promote a product but
implications associated with such advertisements like inclination/excitement
may tempt the young viewers to satisfy their biological needs through illicit
relationships, causing anxiety and stresswhich may force them to become
drug addicts landing them in a vicious circle.Hundreds of experiments
conducted over the last 85 years have established that people are emotionally
influenced by half sexual actions, metaphor in advertisements and through
celebrity endorsement as well. This phenomenon is known as “subliminal
persuasion without conscious evaluation”, subliminal messages like half
sexual actions, metaphors are used in advertisements in such a way that
consumers are influenced by its exposure when respondents don’t actually
recognise it. There has been continuous research in subliminal messages in
biological sciences, psychology and other social science fields including
management.
A highly publicized study in the 1950's by James Vicary, incorporated a

subliminal message in an ad, “Drink Coke, Eat PopCorn”, and the effect was
increased in sales after the movie at refreshment Box. Advertisements are not
only important to advertiser but to a customer as well, as it is an important
source of information for customers and technique of generating sales for
advertisers .The advertisers have been always seen alert to catch the
potential buyers unawareness by igniting their state of mind to feelings and
emotions which prompt them to buy the product as the message contained
therein is more addressed to psyche than the vision. Though there are a
number of ways advertisers can subliminally persuade customers like Music in
ads, the background language influence, love messages in advertisements,
Social proof/cult feelings but there are certain messages which may conflict
with the sound principles of business ethics. Therefore, certain aspects need
to be addressed like how far is it reasonable to have so much pornography
which is apparent in most of the advertisements, what about the half sexual
actions ,how far is it ethical to use metaphor in advertisements and more
importantly the question of celebrity endorsement .
Agencies use metaphor in advertisements where actions and messages

shown are directed at something else than the product information e.g. in
Hero Honda Ignitor bike ad, an employee of a reputed company who has
recently purchased Igniter is shown to have lured a female who incidentally
happens to be his boss. The metaphor is that by purchasing Igniter you will be
able to get hold of a girlfriend and another case of metaphor is that you will not
just be able to have a girlfriend but you will be able to get hold of a celebrity
which others die for. Celebrity endorsement mostly affects youth because of
their vulnerability and it is believed that endorsements which promote fictitious
and misleading information often affect consumer’s behaviour or decisions
about the product or service.
The subliminal tactics started way back in the 1950's and it has been used for
generating sales and also to bring changes in consumer behaviour. Subliminal
messages create anxiety and as a result of it, people tend to lessen this effect
through smoking, drugs and overeating. Subliminal persuasion occurs when
you are able to successfully implant a message in the mind of a person or
group of people whom you target for change without their conscious
evaluation about the change, and encourage them to spread the idea
organically to their associates. Subliminal persuasion is about getting people
to change their minds, to change their beliefs, and to accept new information
as not only being correct, but having the necessity to spread. Advertising,
marketing, movie making, public relations, propaganda, negotiation, and
religion all rely on subliminal persuasion.There are different categories of
Subliminal Advertising and different ways of persuading people subliminally.
The two important categories of subliminal persuasion are visual and auditory
subliminal messages, but since in this research indirect approach of subliminal
persuasion as mentioned by Davie Lakhani in his book “Subliminal seduction”
has been used, so only Half Sexual Actions, Metaphor and Celebrity
Endorsement will be discussed here.
Age and subliminal ads
Age plays an important role in defining consumer behaviour. Young consumers can
be found more involved in aggressive buying patterns of eating than the old aged
consumers. Subliminal advertisements can have more impact on young consumers
than the old ones. As affection and cognition determines the type of buying whether
irrational or rational, there are more chances that consumers at the age of young
adulthood would be prompted towards irrational buying as emotions in young
consumers tends to be on higher side than the cognition because of external stimuli
which in this research is subliminal ads.
OBJECTIVE
The main objectives of the study are:
a) To study the influence of advertisement on the feelings, beliefs of

customer,purchase intentions.
b) To study the perceptions customers are having about the actions, emotions,
depicted in subliminal advertisements and their likely involvement in such
behaviours.
c) To analyse whether subliminal advertisements do create any confusion in

customer’s mind.
d) To see whether different customer groups differ in compulsive buying.
e) To suggest ways to counter negative aspects of Subliminal advertisements.

What Is Subliminal Advertising?

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Name of Researcher: Rohit singh and Ritu Sand

Project: Independent Research

What Is Subliminal Advertising?

Subliminal advertising involves what your senses can perceive consciously or

The Subconscious vs. the Subliminal

The term "subliminal" often misinterpreted. A message that has an influence

People often think subconscious influence is subliminal influence, which is

Subliminal advertising and types of subliminal ads:

Subliminal advertising which can include half Sexual actions, Metaphor,

A highly publicized study in the 1950's by James Vicary, incorporated a

Agencies use metaphor in advertisements where actions and messages

Age and subliminal ads

The main objectives of the study are:

a) To study the influence of advertisement on the feelings, beliefs of

c) To analyse whether subliminal advertisements do create any confusion in

d) To see whether different customer groups differ in compulsive buying.

e) To suggest ways to counter negative aspects of Subliminal advertisements.

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