This article was taken from the April 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Over a six-week period, in the summer of 1957, 50,000 Americans became the unwitting guinea pigs in a mind-control experiment intended to change advertising for ever. James McDonald Vicary, a 42-year-old market researcher, claimed to have installed a subliminal projector of his own design in a New Jersey cinema.
During the run of Picnic, a romance starring William Holden and Kim Novak, his machine flashed two advertising messages on to the screen. One read "Thirsty? Drink Coca-Cola" and the other "Hungry?
Eat popcorn". Because each was displayed for just three milliseconds, audiences remained unaware of them at a conscious level. Yet, according to Vicary, by influencing their subconscious, he increased Coke sales by 18 per cent and popcorn sales by 58 per cent. "This innocent little technique," he boasted, "is going to sell a hell of a lot of goods." Far from applauding his ingenuity, however, press and public were outraged. Journalists accused him of brainwashing people. Five years later Vicary admitted it had all been a hoax, a publicity stunt designed to generate business for his struggling firm. Largely as a result of his deception and the furore it generated, subliminal advertising virtually vanished from mainstream research for nearly half a century. Even today many psychologists and advertisers still insist it is an urban myth.
But they are wrong. Subliminal advertising not only works, it is probably at work in a supermarket or shopping mall near you. In one study, Johan Karremans and his colleagues at the Department of Social Psychology at Radboud University, the Netherlands, displayed the name of a popular brand of iced tea, for 23 milliseconds as their subjects worked on a computer-based task. Later, when offered a choice between iced tea and mineral water, a majority chose the tea. This is an example of subliminal priming, a way of conditioning the brain that is both powerful and widely used.
Equally effective is supraliminal priming. Here, although in plain sight, the priming is seldom noticed due to what is termed "inattentional blindness". We don't perceive what we don't attend to. Take in-store music. Charles Gulas at Wright State University and Charles Schewe at the University of Michigan found baby boomers were likelier to buy things against a background of rock. Yet two-thirds were later unable to say what was playing. In another study, wine buyers exposed to classical music did not buy more wine, but they did buy more expensive bottles.
Aromas can also be used as supraliminal primers. Lieve Doucé and colleagues at Belgium's Hasselt University infused a bookshop with the scent of chocolate for half its opening hours. Despite being too subtle to be easily detected, the aroma increased the time customers spent browsing, the number of titles they reviewed and the number of books bought. The greatest effect was on books about food or drink together with romantic novels, sales of which increased by an impressive 40 per cent.
Even a typeface can have an effect. In my lab, subjects were asked to rate two bowls of tomato soup. Each was described on the menu with the same words but in either Courier or Lucida Calligraphy. Although the soup in each bowl was identically described, the bowl described in Lucida Calligraphy led to its being rated tastier, fresher and more enjoyable, and subjects were more likely to go and buy it.
Next time you shop, ask yourself: "Do I want to purchase this item - or is my subconscious being manipulated to make me think I do?"
David Lewis is the chairman of Mindlab International and author of The Brain Sell (Nicholas Brealey Publishing, £14.99).
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
