James Vicary, an advertising expert, went into a 1950s movie theater to test his devious new tool for persuading others.
During the movie he allegedly flashed the commands “EAT POPCORN” and “DRINK COKE” so fast that the unsuspecting audience couldn’t consciously see the words. Vicary claimed Coke sales jumped 18.1% and popcorn sales leaped 57.7%.
On that day, “subliminal advertising” was born.
Today subliminal advertising is banned by most major countries. The FCC in America outlaws it by simply saying subliminal advertising is designed to deceive. For that reason alone it is forbidden to be used by any radio or television advertiser.
Still, self-help tapes that claim to have subliminal messages hidden on them continue to sell to the tune of $50,000,000 a year.
The question I bring to the table today is this: Which works better: Subliminal Advertising or Hypnotic Writing?
Vicary’s famous movie theater test has been proven to be a hoax. He didn’t test it on the amount of people he claimed (50,000, which the small town theater couldn’t hold), and he didn’t keep an accurate count of popcorn or coke sales. In short, he wanted subliminal advertising to work in order to increase his consulting business as an ad expert. But all the research shows his method did not and does not work.
The same with subliminal tapes. Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson, author of the fascinating book, “Age of Propaganda,” conducted studies to see if subliminal advertising, and subliminal self-help tapes, actually worked. Their research said it did not. There was no evidence to support it. None. While people wanted to believe in subliminals, they could not prove it worked to even the slightest degree.
Hypnotic Writing, on the other hand, is not devious. It is not hidden. It is not illegal. It is designed to influence people with words—obvious words, seen consciously right on the page or the screen. It uses stories, active writing, strategic sentence structure, and more, to achieve results.
Subliminal advertising doesn’t increase sales. Hypnotic Writing does. Subliminal advertising allegedly works below your conscious level of awareness. Hypnotic Writing works on your subconscious mind by using your conscious mind to get there.
Look at it this way:
An example of subliminal advertising might be the famous claim that “images” in ice cubes in a liquor ad look like naked women. Well, you have to treat the ice cubes like Rosarch Test ink-blots in order to come to that conclusion. And even if there were faint images of naked women in the ice cubes, would that really influence anyone to buy more booze?
An example of Hypnotic Writing might be a story-oriented sales letter, such as the famous one I wrote that people are using as a template for their own letters. My letter began, “I’m nearly in tears…” It then told a story of how my latest book was influencing people to go for, and get, their dreams. The story let the sales message get into the readers. More importantly, more copies of my book sold. Hypnotic Writing works.
In short, subliminal advertising is not only questionable, it’s illegal.
Hypnotic Writing, on the other hand, is legit and it gets results.
Joe Vitale is the #1 best-selling author of “Spiritual Marketing” and author of way too many other books and tapes to list here. He also published a new bestseller The Millionaire Mindset. Grab the exclusive FREE 40+ page preview at: http://www.themillionairemind.net/free/?a3jli
