History Main / SubliminalAdvertising

!!Examples

[[folder: Advertising ]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live-Action TV ]]

* A ParodyCommercial for the Psi Corps in ''Series/BabylonFive'' famously ends with a subliminal message: "The Psi Corps is your friend. Trust the Corps." It's not ''technically'' subliminal - The creators of the show researched what the legal definition was, and made sure it ran longer than that - but it's brief enough that, at the time, you could only actually read it if you had recorded the show and could go back to the recording and step through it frame-by-frame.

-->'''Stephen Fry''': So, there you have it. Subliminal advertising doesn't -- stephenfryforpope -- work.
* In the ''{{Series/Columbo}}'' episode "[[Recap/ColumboS03E04 Double Exposure]]," Dr. Bart Keppel is a marketing guru who specializes in this technique. At the beginning of the episode, he even uses his technique to kill executive Vic Norris by feeding him salty foods and then showing him a film containing subliminal images of a tall, cool glass of iced tea. The result is that Norris leaves to go to the fountain in the lobby, where Keppel surprises him and shoots him. In the end, though, he gets HoistByHisOwnPetard when [[spoiler:Columbo shows him a film containing subliminal images of Columbo searching his office and finding the key piece of evidence against him. When he goes to dispose of it, Columbo catches him in the act]].

[[folder: Magazines]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

* Parodied in DLC for ''{{VideoGame/Portal 2}}'', where Cave Johnson says that there is a pair of glasses that allows you to see subliminal advertising in every surface.

[[folder: Western Animation]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

Wish we could help you with that anxiety.

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-----> '''Navy recruiter:''' Hey you! Join the navy!

** So instead of subliminal advertising it is ''subliminal scaring'' in horror movies. As a scene is supposed to become more frightening, more gruesome frames are added for more ''frightening'' scenes (such as [[CatScare unnerving a deadly animal]]) for the serial killer breaking in, they instead use animals being slaughtered instead.
** A related concept is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrasound infrasound]]; sounds at certain very low frequencies which fall outside normal human hearing range, but which many humans can still perceive at a subconscious level. These sounds have been proven to cause feelings of fear, anxiety and a sensation of BeingWatched, possibly because similar low-frequency sounds would be made [[PrimalFear by predators lying in wait for our protohuman ancestors]].
** Some studies have indicated that while such explicit instructions are generally ineffective, images such as those mentioned above ''actually'' work. So instead of saying "Drink Coca-Cola", they would just 'splice in' some subliminal images of a 'desert mirage' or ''other'' thirst-inducing imagery into an actual Coke commercial. Suddenly their audience find themselves feeling very thirsty as they [[MeatOVision look at that bottle]]...
** Studies have also shown that the subliminal image isn't any more effective than a regular old "Let's just show them a bottle of coke for 30 seconds" advertising, which is far less likely to get you in trouble!

* In 1978, a TV station in Wichita, Kansas ran a subliminal message telling the BTK killer to turn himself in. It didn't work. [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Maybe he didn't watch that channel.]]
* There are now billboards that have a special speaker in them so that it'll only project sound to a certain spot on the street. This means you can quite happily be walking along until you reach that spot and suddenly it sounds like somebody whispered in your ear something like "drink coke" when nobody is near you.
* A mid 90s Fanta commercial tried to push the idea that Fanta just tastes good and quenches thirst and doesn't make you cool, while simultaneously co-opting the youth culture of the time by having a trendily dressed black teenager deliver the message. Just after he says "it will not make me popular", small text reading "yes it will" flashes on the screen.

** --> '''Navy recruiter:''' Hey you! Join the navy!

** Further parodying it in the same episode as the subliminal advertising was part of a three-pronged advertising plan: Subliminal, "Liminal" and ''"Superliminal"'', which apparently was shouting at random people
--> '''Navy recruiter:''' Hey you! Join the navy!

** Further parodying it in the same episode as the subliminal advertising was part of a 'three pronged' advertising plan: Subliminal, "Liminal" and ''"Superliminal"'', which apparently was ''shouting'' at random people "Hey you! Join the navy!"

[[folder: Anime And Manga ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* The 1960s TV show ''Series/{{Hazel}}'' did one about some guys that supposedly created irresistable subliminal ads, in which they ran a film where 'SP' would appear briefly, and the guy speaking to the crowd (who was selling some stock for a company called 'Brazilian') because, at the end of the message, would say, "And Buy Brazilian". So one guy who didn't know he was being marketed to for a stock, was buying Brazilian Nuts. The guys doing this get arrested for it. Which brings us to...

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* Found in the Atari Lynx version of ''VideoGame/{{Rampage}}'': There are no (Buy a Lynx) subliminal messages (Or two) in this game (Buy a Lynx).
* Parodied in DLC for ''{{VideoGame/Portal2}}'', where Cave Johnson says that there is a pair of glasses that allows you to see subliminal advertising in every surface.

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* In the ''{{Series/Columbo}}'' episode "Double Exposure," Dr. Bart Keppel is a marketing guru who specializes in this technique. At the beginning of the episode, he even uses his technique to kill executive Vic Norris by feeding him salty foods and then showing him a film containing subliminal images of a tall, cool glass of iced tea. The result is that Norris leaves to go to the fountain in the lobby, where Keppel surprises him and shoots him. In the end, though, he gets HoistByHisOwnPetard when [[spoiler:Columbo shows him a film containing subliminal images of Columbo searching his office and finding the key piece of evidence against him. When he goes to dispose of it, Columbo catches him in the act]].

* A FakeCommercial for the Psi Corps in ''Series/BabylonFive'' famously ends with a subliminal message: "The Psi Corps is your friend. Trust the Corps."

* The 1960s TV show ''{{Hazel}}'' did one about some guys that supposedly created irresistable subliminal ads, in which they ran a film where 'SP' would appear briefly, and the guy speaking to the crowd (who was selling some stock for a company called 'Brazilian') because, at the end of the message, would say, "And Buy Brazilian". So one guy who didn't know he was being marketed to for a stock, was buying Brazilian Nuts. The guys doing this get arrested for it. Which brings us to...

* Australia's Network Ten was found to have beached a broadcasting code forbidding this following its coverage of the 2007 ARIA Awards, when the logos for Toyota Yaris, Chupa Chups, KFC, and Olay were rapid-cut into the nomination segments. ''Series/MediaWatch'' found another example in an episode of Ten's ''AreYouSmarterThanAFifthGrader''.

* CromartieHighSchool does this for Takuro Yoshida in episode 3.

* ''{{QI}}'' has a segment about subliminal advertising, starting with StephenFry asking the panel how he could get the audience to vote for him as Pope without even realizing it, and ending with:
-->'''StephenFry''': So, there you have it. Subliminal advertising doesn't -- stephenfryforpope -- work.

* Australia's Network Ten was found to have beached a broadcasting code forbidding this following its coverage of the 2007 ARIA Awards, when the logos for Toyota Yaris, Chupa Chups, KFC, and Olay were rapid-cut into the nomination segments. ''MediaWatch'' found another example in an episode of Ten's ''AreYouSmarterThanAFifthGrader''.

See also SubliminalSeduction.

* Parodied in ''FamilyGuy'' episode "Mr. Griffin Goes To Washington" when a clip of ''Lassie'' contains subliminal advertising of an cigarette company executive telling the viewers to smoke.

* ''Series/{{Dogstar}}'': In "Persuasion", Bob Santino plants subliminal messages in his robog ads to cause people to regard the Dogstar as a threat and try to destroy it.

* Parodied in the latest DLC for ''{{VideoGame/Portal2}}'', where Cave Johnson says that there is a pair of glasses that allows you to see subliminal advertising in every surface.

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* The "Subneural ad" advance, and associated unit, in [[{{Civilization}} Civilization: Call to Power]]

* In the ''{{Series/Columbo}}'' episode "Double Exposure," the killer is a marketing guru who specializes in this technique. At the beginning of the episode, he lures the victim to the murder site by feeding him salty foods and then showing him a film containing subliminal images of a tall, cool glass of iced tea. In the end, though, he gets HoistByHisOwnPetard when [[spoiler:Columbo shows him a film containing subliminal images of Columbo searching his office and finding the key piece of evidence against him. When he goes to dispose of it, Columbo catches him in the act]].

* The first episode of DarrenBrown TV special ''How to Control the Nation'' revolved around using hypnosis to glue the viewers at home to their chairs. Over the course of the show, some (fairly obvious) pictures of a man tied to a chair is flashed on screen. At the end of the day, the illusion depended on the fact that Darren asks the viewer to put their hands in their laps (it is surprisingly difficult to get up from a sofa using only your legs as leverage).