“Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” subliminal messages

You may remember the famous story about a certain James Vicary who flashed “Eat Popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola” subliminal messages during a Fort Lee, New Jersey movie in 1957.

He claimed his subliminal messages achieved an 18.1% increase in Coke sales and a 57.8% increase in popcorn sales in a single screening. The media loved the story at the time, and it has often been quoted over the 6 decades since. The story spread like wildfire around the world, and no doubt helped Vicary’s struggling marketing business.

In many ways this propelled James Vicary into becoming the father of the visual subliminal industry.

However, at the time the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and research psychologists were sceptical of his claims. They did not believe his story.

Then in 1962 Vicary admitted the hoax in the ‘Advertising Age’ newspaper. His fame was already sealed. Today various subliminal affirmation web sites still repeat the hoax as if it were true.

James Vicary made the whole thing up. It never happened. He said so himself. However, it did get people thinking. Research psychologists turned their attention to subliminal messaging and a lot of research has been done which has been adopted by advertisers ever since.

As a result several studies such as the “Lipton Ice Tea ” experiment have concluded that "although Vicary’s advertising techniques appear to have existed only in Vicary’s fantasies, if certain conditions are taken into account (such as opportunity and intent) his fantasies may indeed become reality."

 

No doubt you have heard the advertising industry claim that “Sex Sells!”. When  Coca Cola reintroduced a new contoured bottle into the Australian market they launched an advertising campaign with the slogan: “Feel the Curves.” The shapely Coke bottle sits atop a mountain of ice; an ice cube on the left of the bottle reads “sex” and another one on the bottom right contains the image of a woman before an erect male member performing oral sex. Coca Cola blamed the graphic designer for the “mistake.” Are the following images mistakes too?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The most important factor in the success of subliminal messaging is the repetition of a simple message. Peter Zapfella has studied the latest results of subliminal messaging research and employed these techniques for therapeutic purposes at Internet Hypnosis. Shop

Now you can benefit from subliminal affirmation messaging. Your deep unconscious mind can change emotions, beliefs, and bad habits of behavior without really trying. Take a look at the expanding range of hundreds of topics. No doubt you will be amazed.

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