How a Publicity Blitz
Created the Myth of Subliminal Advertising
by Stuart Rogers Winter 1992-1993
In September 1957, I began what to me was a serious
study of contemporary applied psychology at
At exactly the same time, in nearby
The Tachistoscope
Some time before, a device had been developed that could emit a
flash of white light at a speed of 1/580, 000th of a second. it was called a tachistoscope.
The
light pulse of the tachistoscope was so fast that it
was imperceptible to human consciousness - what I was learning as a psychology
student to call "subliminal" because it was below ("sub")
the threshold ("limen") of human
perception.
The work done for Kodak involved a tachistoscope providing illumination in a pitch-dark studio
for a large-lens camera with an open aperture. In one series of experiments,
the flash of the tachistoscope was triggered
electronically by the sound of a rifle shot, and the image of a bullet in
flight was frozen on color film.
Perhaps you have seen samples of these
remarkable photographs hanging on the walls of your local camera store.
Retainers
and Consulting Fees
Armed with the scientific sound of "tachistoscope"
Vicary invented a sparkling new pseudoscience, and
proceeded to contact the CEOs, marketing directors, and advertising managers of
multimillion-dollar corporations headquartered in
His persuasive sales pitch was that consumers would comprehend
information projected at 1/60,000th of a second, although they could not
literally "see" the flash. And he sent a news release to the major
media announcing his "discovery" without any scientific validation
whatsoever.
Plenty of Cooperation
Ever eager to tickle the public fancies
that sell periodicals and build radio and television ratings, publishers and
broadcasters alike obediently ran Vicary’s stories,
thus endorsing in the public mind all that he imagined.
My psychology professors were as eager as
the
And a Little Conflict
Vicary’s
veracity was further enhanced by the head of another consulting firm, Ernest Dichter, of The Institute for Motivational Research, who is
said to have favored the mnemonic moniker “Doctor Dichter”
– although a friend of mine observed that he was no more “an M.D., a J.D., a
Ph.D. or any-damned-D. than Colonel Sanders (of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame)
was a military officer.” Such appropriations of lofty title are helpful,
though, to those who wish to enhance their credibility – and work as
consultants.
Dichter issued a
public statement declaring that subliminal projection was a form of hypnosis,
and would “give the whole field of motivation research a bad name.”
Although it is not a matter of public
record whether Dichter was under contract to Vicary, he might as well have been. Because, almost as if
he had been waiting for Dichter’s announcement, Vicary responded by holding a press conference in October
of 1957 at which he announced that Dichter’s
observation was “like saying a whiff of a martini is worse than a swallow.”
Ah, conflict, publicity’s great ally. The
media loved it. With quotes like that, Vicary could
tell them nearly anything and they would be simply delighted to print or
broadcast it.
The Demon
Rum
It is also unclear as to whether Vicary
had a hand in writing their copy, but he was helped substantially when the
Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) immediately issued a [press] release
of their own, apparently prompted by Vicary's martini
remark.
For reasons they never explained, these teatotalling[1]
ladies suspected that the devilish subliminal techniques they had been reading
about in the newspapers were being used by breweries and distilleries to
"increase their sagging sales", as their release said.
In fact, beer and liquor sales had not been sagging at all,
but the claim made another good story, so the media ran the WCTU release with
all the enthusiasm they had devoted to Jim Vicary's
fabrications.
The Famous
Popcorn Experiment
His media relations program in full swing by November, Vicary issued another release which claimed that subliminal
perception was “a new band in human perception, like FM [radio],” a medium then
beginning to gain a modest level of popularity.
And, as a follow-up, toward the end of 1957 Vicary
invited 50 reporters to a film studio in
The release said than in an unidentified motion picture theater a
"scientific test" had been conducted in which 45,699 persons
unknowingly had been exposed to two advertising messages projected subliminally
on alternate nights. One message, the release claimed, had advised the
moviegoers to "Eat Popcorn" while the other had read "Drink
Coca-Cola."
Because Vicary was by training a market
research specialist, it is not surprising that his news releases could be
generously sprinkled with the kind of terminology that gave them an air of
scientific credibility.
And, although I cannot attest to it personally, I have been told by
people who knew him that Vicary was particularly
forceful and persuasive in person – “a natural salesman.”
He told the reporters gathered in the film studio that sales figures
at the theater over six weeks of testing had been compared with previous
records to check for any fluctuation in the sales of the products that had
reportedly been subliminally advertised.
Vicary swore that
the invisible advertising had increased sales of popcorn an average of 57.5
percent, and increased the sales of Coca-Coal an average of 18.1
percent.
No explanation was offered for
the difference in size of the percentages, no allowance was made for variations
in attendance, no other details were provided as to how or under what
conditions the purported tests had been conducted.
Vicary got off the book for his lack of
specificity by stating that the research information formed part of his patent
application for the projection device, and therefore must remain secret. He
assured the media, however, that what he called “sound statistical controls”
had been employed in the theater test.
At least as importantly, too, he
had observed the proven propagandist’s ploy of using odd numbers, and also
including a decimal in a percentage. The figures 57.5 and 18.1 percent rang
with a clear tone of Truth.
A
Confusion of Fictions
Shortly thereafter, presumably on the basis of a personal interview
with Vicary, Motion Picture Daily disclosed
that the site of the experiment had been the movie theater in
It's interesting that we now more often hear today that the site of
the now-famous Popcorn Experiment was Grover's Mill,
Grover's Mill, of course, was the site chosen for the landing of the
Martian invasion fleet in Orson Wells' classic radio dramatization of War of
the Worlds - an event I now believe was just as accurately and honestly
presented as Jim Vicary's subliminal advertising
experiments.
When I learned of Vicary's claim, I made
the short drive to
The size of
the small-town theater suggested it should have taken considerably more than
six weeks to complete a test of nearly 50,000 movie patrons.
But even more perplexing was the response of the theater manager to
my eager questioning. He declared that no such text had ever been conducted
at his theater.
There went my term paper for my psychology class.
Soon after my disappointment, Motion Picture Daily reported that the same theater manager had sworn to one of its reporters that there had been no effect on refreshment stand patronage, whether a test had been conducted or not - a rather curious form of denial, I think.
That got into the
(missing
part)
The FCC
Picks up the Gauntlet
(missing
part)
....the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] ordered Vicary's firm, The Subliminal Projection Company, to
conduct a closed-circuit demonstration of their secret in
(missing
part)
The advertising industry's senior publication at the time,
Printer's Ink, observed wryly, "Having gone to see something that is
not supposed to be seen, and having not seen it, as forecast, [the FCC and
Congressmen] seemed satisfied."
In fact, so
thoroughly did all assembled not see anything that the only reported
response was that of Senator Charles e. Potter (Republican, Michigan). "I
think I want a hot dog," he said. (missing
part)
Introducing
Innocence
"This innocent little technique," Vicary
announced a short time later, "is going to sell a hell of a lot of
goods."
(missing
part)
In early 1958, the National Association of Broadcasters, in a move
undoubtedly designed to forestall federal and state legislation, boldly banned
the broadcast of that which had yet to be proved to exist.
And despite all the Top Secret treatment that Vicary
claimed for his purported patent application, years later - in1969, when I went
to Washington to work on a project for the U.S. Patent Office - no one there
could find any record of a Vicary patent application,
nor anything related to a device to project subliminal advertising.
Psychological
Studies
Since Vicary's announcements began in
September 1957, results of psychological studies have proved the validity of
the observation that a "strong stimulus produces a strong response, and a
weak stimulus produces a weak response."
Messages that are projected (as Vicary
proposed) at light levels significantly below the level of screen images, and
for such short periods of time that they cannot even be perceived, cannot
reasonably be expected to have any effect at all on behavior. All the
behavioral studies I have read since 1957 indicate that zero perception
equals zero response, and so "subliminal" means in practical
terms "no effect".
The Corner
of Your Eye
(missing
part)
Yet his [Vicary] claims grew weaker and
vaguer with each passing month. By spring he stated that subliminal advertising
would only work as what he called "reminder advertising" - with
" a level of affect similar to that of a billboard seen out of the
corner of the eye from a speeding car (emphasis added).
This was a far cry, indeed, from his descriptions of the
irrepressible and irresistible force he had claimed to have harnessed less than
eight months earlier.
(missing
part)
Millions
in Fees
Despite this back-pedalling on the
potential power and influence of his purported discovery, by the middle of
1958, James M. Vicary had reportedly signed contracts
with many of the corporations headquartered in
It has been estimated that he collected retainer and consulting fees
from
Then, some time in June 1958, Mr. Vicary disappeared
from the
The big advertisers, apparently ashamed of having been fooled by
such an obvious scam, have said nothing since about subliminal advertising,
except to deny that they have ever used it. (missing
part)