James Vicary And Subliminal Advertising
During the 50’s , everyone talked about mind control and brainwashing. At the end of the decade, James Vicary conducted his famous experiment on the supposed effect of subliminal advertising. Over time, his conclusions were criticized. Yet they are still a source of inspiration.
James Vicary’s experiment is probably the most famous in advertising. His test was so infamous that since then people have believed that subliminal advertising is successful. Many nations around the world banned this practice and similar techniques that Vicary used in his famous experiment.
James Vicary was a renowned market researcher born in Detroit in 1915. He was a pioneer in the study of consumer behavior and how consumers respond to different types of advertising. James Vicary’s experiment was the first and only experiment focusing on subliminal perception.
The experiment of James Vicary
As we mentioned above, there was great interest in mental phenomena during the decade of the 50’s. In particular, hypnosis and the unconscious mind became very popular. James Vicary had an idea for an experiment in which he wanted to prove the effect subliminal perception could have on humans. How, for example, it could get people to shop by using cinema film.
Vicary conducted his experiment during the screening of the film Picnic in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He showed some hidden phrases during the film that said ” Drink Coca-Cola ” and ” Eat popcorn “. For this he used an instrument called a tachistoscope that was able to display several images in a short time.
The images were at high speed, so the audience did not notice them. In other words, he showed the words to the audience, but no one could see them consciously. This was the goal: To prove the effect of messages aimed at the unconscious.
The results of subliminal advertising
When Vicary finished the experiment, he published a report on it. In this report, he claimed that after being exposed to the subordinate messages, the purchase of Coca-Cola increased by 18%, while the sales of popcorn increased by 57%.
Shortly afterwards, the London Sunday Times ran an article on both the experiment and Vicary’s report on it.
Almost immediately there was a kind of mass hysteria. Later, author Vance Packard wrote the book The Hidden Persuaders . It helped consolidate people’s panic and intimidated many different governments.
Since then, the term subliminal advertising was coined. The US government threatened to take licenses from all media that used these techniques. Subsequently, this type of propaganda was banned in several countries. At its own expense, the CIA began studying this new method.
The truth
Over time, people began to suspect Vicary’s experiment, mainly because the author refused to share information about the method he used. Similarly, Dr. Henry Link, a specialist in experimental psychology, challenged him to repeat the experiment. However, Vicary refused to do so.
The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) asked Vicary to provide them with detailed information about the experiment, but he declined to comment. Later, the radio and television company CBS tried to carry out a similar experiment. They sent subordinate messages urging the public to call the station at a given time, but this did not happen.
Finally, in 1962, in an article published in the journal Ad Age, James Vicary admitted that he never carried out the experiment. He invented the experiment because his company went through tough times and he needed publishing to keep it afloat.
This experiment ended up proving that society is gullible and that we believe in everything that comes from a “scientific” source using mass communication media. Many governments around the world still ban subliminal or dishonest advertising.
