Killer Visual Strategies

CHAPTER 5RULE 2: SMALL VISUAL CUES HAVE A LARGE IMPACT

Figure 5.1

Sources: Dijksterhuis et al., “The Unconscious Consumer”; Blanchfield, Hardy, and Marcora, “Non-conscious Visual Cues […].”

In 1957, a market researcher and social physiologist by the name of James Vicary coined the term “subliminal advertising” in the context of his now-infamous popcorn experiment. In that experiment, which was supposedly conducted on 45,699 moviegoers attending a film called Picnic, Vicary played 0.03-millisecond flashes of phrases like “Hungry? Eat Popcorn!” or “Drink Coca-Cola” on screen during the film. Vicary declared success, claiming that these subtle cues resulted in an 18.1-percent increase in Coca-Cola sales and a 57.5-percent increase in popcorn sales.

This experiment was later debunked, with one core argument against its findings involving the speed at which the mind can process text in comparison with visuals. Critics argued that the experiment would be more believable if pictures of popcorn and Coca-Cola had been used instead of text. Since the subconscious mind cannot process text-based information nearly as fast as it can visual cues, researchers could not substantiate Vicary's claims.

Regardless of these problems with the popcorn experiment, a widespread interest in the potential of subliminal advertising took hold. Shortly after Vicary published his findings, a report titled ...