The courts dismissed these cases-as they did similar suits brought against rock band Judas Priest-because they found insufficient evidence that backmasking worked. Two sets of parents sued British musician Ozzy Osbourne, claiming that backmasked phrases in his songs had prompted their children to commit suicide. feared that some rock bands used backmasking to convey satanic teachings. In the 1980s religious groups in the U.S. Proponents claimed that the reversed messages acted subliminally on listeners. Other controversial campaigns have involved “backmasking,” or backward masking-a technique in which audio engineers record spoken words backward onto a track. Bush claimed it was an accident, but television affiliates quickly pulled the commercial from the airwaves. Although “rats” was part of a clearly visible line, “bureaucrats decide,” the less than flattering four letters appeared on screen 30 milliseconds before the rest. One Republican campaign spot spliced the word “rats” into a segment about Democratic candidate Al Gore. In 2000 subliminal messaging entered the U.S. Unfortunately, the man they were after, Dennis Rader, eluded capture until 2005. For example, in 1978 a Wichita, Kan., TV station received permission from the police to show a glimpse of the sentence “Now call the chief” during a report on the “BTK” serial killer, hoping he might then feel compelled to turn himself in. Their intimation tactics typically followed Vicary’s lead, embedding millisecond flashes of words or images in other film clips. In the decades after Vicary’s experiment, marketers, politicians, film directors and even law-enforcement agencies tried to harness the powers of subliminal persuasion without measurable success. Because these subconscious hints streak through our memory almost as fleetingly as they flash on a screen, they hold no power unless they happen to relate to our immediate goals or natural proclivities. On the contrary, it seems that we are susceptible to these extremely brief suggestions only under special, somewhat limited circumstances. Subliminal messaging cannot override our intentions or commandeer our will. Recently, though, psychologists have begun to discover that subliminal messages can sometimes redirect our decisions, but not at all in the way Vicary had proposed. and Europe continued to believe that subliminal advertising could shape consumer choice despite all the evidence to the contrary. After five years Vicary confessed that his so-called experiment was “a gimmick.” His admission garnered far less attention than his initial publicity stunt. Researchers tried to replicate Vicary’s findings during this time, but none succeeded. As public pressure mounted in response, the U.K., Australia and the National Association of Broadcasters in America all banned subliminal advertising sight unseen. Vance Packard’s book The Hidden Persuaders-which described Vicary’s claims in detail-became an overnight best seller. On October 5, 1957, some three weeks after Vicary’s event, Norman Cousins, editor in chief of the Saturday Review, wrote an article called “Smudging the Subconscious,” in which he lambasted ad campaigns designed to “break into the deepest and most private parts of the human mind and leave all sorts of scratch marks.” The Central Intelligence Agency soon issued a report on the operational potential of subliminal perception. The idea that ads might be broadcast subliminally, below the threshold of conscious awareness, seemed akin to brainwashing. Vicary’s findings played directly into a popular fear at the time that Madison Avenue could manipulate consumers like mindless puppets. As proof, he presented data indicating that the messages had increased soda sales at the theater by 18 percent and popcorn sales by 58 percent. Vicary argued that these messages were too fast for filmgoers to read but salient enough for the audience to register their meaning subconsciously. Over the course of six weeks during the preceding summer, he had arranged to have slogans-specifically, “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola”-flashed for three milliseconds, every five seconds, onto a movie screen in Fort Lee, N.J., while patrons watched Picnic. On September 12, 1957, Vicary called a press conference to announce the results of an unusual experiment. Vicary, an independent marketing researcher. In this real-life story, the spotlight falls on James M. The birth of subliminal advertising reads almost like a script from a television show.
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