Bogus Mind Control at the Movies In the 1950s, people got very excited about a thing called subliminal advertising. James Viekery ‘of New Jersey said he'd fixed up a movie projector with a special device that flashed the words “Eat popcom” or “Drink Coke" onto the sereen in the middle ofthe movie. The words supposedly ‘appeared so quickly and for such a brief time that viewers didn't notice them. This fs where the term subliminal comes in; it means “something that you're unaware of.” Vickery claimed that a 8 result of this new form of advertising, soft-drink sales increased by 18 percent atthe theatre ‘and popcorn purchases shot up by 57 percent! ‘You can imagine the reaction: Advertisers couldn't wait to try it out, ordinary people became ‘afraid that they were going to be brainwashed, and some governments immediately forbade theatres and TV stations from using the technique. As itturned out, the whole thing was a big hoax. When some researchers attempted to test the device and measure the effectiveness of subliminal advertising, they found that it didn’t even work! DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME Next time you're watching a movie or TV show, keep an eye out for product placements, and count up how many you see. ‘Compare the exposure a product gets in a TV show to the kind of profile it might be given in a commercial. Which one are you more likely to remember or talk about with friends? Do you have to hear a sales pitch in order to be persuaded? And does it make a difference to the audience whether it’s a villain, a hero—or an alien!—using the product? ‘Synthesizing: This selection concentrates on stealth marketing campaigns and advertising. What information in the text helped you see advertising in a new way? Metacognition: What strategies from page 2 did you find most helpful as you synthesized while reading this selection? Media Literacy: In your opinion, which of the advertising techniques described here has the greatest potential for selling a product? Dreier tad