During the 1950s, there was a real boom in all issues related to mental manipulation and brainwashing. At the end of that decade, James Vicary conducted a famous experiment on the supposed effectiveness of subliminal advertising, whose conclusions have over time been widely criticized. But that doesn’t stop him from continuing to be cited as a source of inspiration.
James Vicary’s experience is probably the most famous in this area. Their test became so famous that since then people have believed that subliminal advertising was totally effective. In fact, many governments around the world have banned the use of techniques similar to those Vicary allegedly used in his famous experiment.
- Vicary was a renowned market researcher born in Detroit.
- USA.
- In 1915.
- Pioneered the study of consumer behavior and its reactions to different advertising instruments.
- With James Vicary’s experience being the first and fundamentally the only one focused on the effect of subliminal perception.
“Memory believes before knowledge can remember. “-William Faulkner-
As we have already mentioned, in the 1950s there was a great collective interest in all the phenomena of the mind, in particular, everything related to hypnosis and the unconscious was very fashionable, the experience of James Vicary was born when this researcher wanted to test the effect of subliminal perception to encourage people to buy, using cinema as a medium.
Vicary made her famous film experience in Fort Lee, New Jersey, during the screening of the film Picnic. What he did was introduce a series of hidden phrases into the film, which said “Drink Coca-Cola” and “eat popcorn. “To do this, he used an instrument called a taquitoscope, capable of displaying multiple images in a very short time.
The speed with which the images appeared prevented viewers from realizing that these messages were there, that is, the posters were before your eyes, but no one could consciously understand them, that was precisely the goal: to test the impact of these messages directed towards the unconscious.
After testing his experience, James Vicary published a report on the subject, noting that after exposure to subliminal messages, Coca-Cola’s sales increased by 18%, while those of popcorn increased by 57%.
A short time later, the Sunday Times published an article titled Selling Through the Subconscious, in which the newspaper featured both the experience and Vicary’s report.
Immediately, a kind of collective hysteria occurred. Later, writer Vance Packard wrote the book The Hidden Persuasors, which eventually consolidated general fear and provoked serious concern in governments.
Since then, the concept of “subliminal advertising” has become popular. The U. S. government has threatened to withdraw the license to any medium that uses these techniques. This type of advertising was then banned in several countries around the world. The Cia, in turn, has begun to study this new method.
Over time, suspicions began to arise about James Vicary’s experience, mainly because he refused to share technical information about the methodology he had used. Similarly, Dr. Henry Link, who specializes in experimental psychology, challenged him to repeat the experiment, but Vicary refused. .
In addition, the Foundation for Advertising Research asked Vicary for detailed information about the details of the experiment and received no response. Later, Canadian radio and television network CBS attempted a similar experiment and sent subliminal messages urging the public to call the station at some point, but it did not.
Finally, in 1962, James Vicary confessed, through an article published in Advertising Age magazine, that his experiment had never actually been conducted, he had made an montage because his business was in difficult condition and needed fame to revive him. So we don’t know if the experiment was actually done or not, as Vicary said.
What James Vicary’s experience has shown is that society is very uredulating and that scientific information is easily truthful with the help/complicity of the media. Many governments maintain a ban on “subliminal advertising” to this day.