“Sex And Subliminal Mind Control Techniques”
Warning: Sensitive Material
Well, that title certainly got your
attention, didn’t it? Sex is one of the most used subliminal advertising
techniques, as we shall see. For fun, do this Google search for “subliminal seduction” and examine the large size images. You’ll be astonished at what you see, and don’t normally see. – CP
“Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public’s perception
of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people (for example,
politicians and performing artists), goods and services, organizations
of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.” The drive to sell
products and ideas to the masses has lead to an unprecedented amount of
research on human behavior and on the human psyche. Cognitive sciences,
psychology, sociology, semiotics, linguistics and other related fields
were and still are extensively researched through well-funded studies.
“No group of sociologists can approximate the ad teams in the gathering
and processing of exploitable social data. The ad teams have billions to
spend annually on research and testing of reactions, and their products
are magnificent accumulations of material about the shared experience
and feelings of the entire community.” – Marshal McLuhan, “The
Extensions of Man”
The results of those studies are applied to advertisements, movies,
music videos and other media in order to make them as influential as
possible. The art of marketing is highly calculated and scientific
because it must reach both the individual and the collective
consciousness. In high-budget cultural products, a video is never “just a
video,” Images, symbols and meanings are strategically placed in order
to generate a desired effect. “It is with knowledge of the human being,
his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his
automatisms as well as knowledge of social psychology and analytical
psychology that propaganda refines its techniques.” – “Propagandes,”
Jacques Ellul
Today’s propaganda almost never uses rational or logical arguments. It directly taps into a human’s most primal needs and instincts in order to generate an emotional and irrational response. If we always thought rationally, we probably wouldn’t buy 50% of what we own. Babies and children are constantly found in advertisements targeting women for a specific reason: studies have shown that images of children trigger in women an instinctual need to nurture, to care and to protect, ultimately leading to a sympathetic bias towards the advertisement.
Sex is ubiquitous in mass media, as it draws and keeps the viewer’s attention. It directly connects to our animal need to breed and to reproduce, and, when triggered, this instinct can instantly overshadow any other rational thoughts in our brain.
Subliminal Perception: What if the messages described above were able to reach directly the viewers’ subconscious mind, without the viewers even realizing what is happening? That is the goal of subliminal perception. The phrase subliminal advertising was coined in 1957 by the US market researcher James Vicary, who said he could get moviegoers to “drink Coca-Cola” and “eat popcorn” by flashing those messages onscreen for such a short time that viewers were unaware. “Subliminal perception is a deliberate process created by communications technicians, by which you receive and respond to information and instructions without being consciously aware of the instructions” – Steve Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States. This technique is often used in marketing and we all know that sex sells. A few examples:
Today’s propaganda almost never uses rational or logical arguments. It directly taps into a human’s most primal needs and instincts in order to generate an emotional and irrational response. If we always thought rationally, we probably wouldn’t buy 50% of what we own. Babies and children are constantly found in advertisements targeting women for a specific reason: studies have shown that images of children trigger in women an instinctual need to nurture, to care and to protect, ultimately leading to a sympathetic bias towards the advertisement.
Sex is ubiquitous in mass media, as it draws and keeps the viewer’s attention. It directly connects to our animal need to breed and to reproduce, and, when triggered, this instinct can instantly overshadow any other rational thoughts in our brain.
Subliminal Perception: What if the messages described above were able to reach directly the viewers’ subconscious mind, without the viewers even realizing what is happening? That is the goal of subliminal perception. The phrase subliminal advertising was coined in 1957 by the US market researcher James Vicary, who said he could get moviegoers to “drink Coca-Cola” and “eat popcorn” by flashing those messages onscreen for such a short time that viewers were unaware. “Subliminal perception is a deliberate process created by communications technicians, by which you receive and respond to information and instructions without being consciously aware of the instructions” – Steve Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States. This technique is often used in marketing and we all know that sex sells. A few examples:
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Note the innocent little “S” Skittle in front of the word Explosion…
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Well, well, well, Coca-Cola, what have we here?
•
Combining images and letters to form words…
‘Although some sources claim that subliminal advertising is ineffective
or even an urban myth, the documented usage of this technique in mass
media proves that creators believe in its powers. Recent studies have
also proven its effectiveness, especially when the message is
negative.’* “A team from University College London, funded by the
Wellcome Trust, found that it [subliminal perception] was particularly
good at instilling negative thoughts. There has been much speculation
about whether people can process emotional information unconsciously,
for example pictures, faces and words,” said Professor Nilli Lavie, who
led the research. We have shown that people can perceive the emotional
value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that
people are much more attuned to negative words.”
