Customer Reviews

Subliminal Seduction

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I learned how to relax, and gradually see "SEX" written in advertising. I was able to show other people how to see it.

Then one day I saw it written on a log, and later on a stone. This taught me something important about how the evidence of my own senses can be altered by social motivation, and gave me insight into cult behavior. Perhaps not what the author was trying to convey, but well worth the price of the book, in the end.

If this book is a bunch of hooey, then why two instead of one star? Because it's rather interesting to read, and also interesting looking at the pictures the author includes as examples, trying to locate exactly what he is talking about. Me, perhaps one or two instances seemed to vaguely contain the element of suggestion described by the author but it was so vague and ambiguous that I don't know why it would even be noticed by anyone.

I read this book a long time ago, back when it was first released in paperback. The premise sounded so interesting I just had to buy it. Once I started reading it, I was scratching my head thinking I must be missing something here because I just didn't see what was supposed to be so very evident and clear once it was pointed out by the author.

If you want to see if you are able to see little hidden words in the pictures then by all means buy this book but if you are looking for something truly useful, don't waste your money.

In this book, Wilson Bryan Key claims that advertisers spend millions of dollars a year inserting subliminal, racy images into advertisements. By unconsciously appealing to our prurient interests, Key claims, these ads make us want to buy the product.

An interesting idea. Problem is, Key neglects to tells us where he got the "millions of dollars" figure; he doesn't provide us with any whistle-blowers who have done this alleged work; and he never provides any proof that even if this "subliminal seduction" were taking place, that it actually works.

The thing is, ads of this sort (though much more innocent) were indeed tested in the late 1950s in TV commercials. In the middle of a commercial the words "Buy Coke" would appear for a split second, too fast for the conscious mind to register. But the test results were inconclusive, and the idea was abandoned.

But here comes Wilson Bryan Key, who claims to see breasts and decapitated heads in photos of ice cubes (I have owned this book for 20 years, and I still can't find them). He produces a fashion ad with two women in it, and deduces that they are secretly lesbians. He has also found secret dirty lyrics in pop records; he cites the 1973 hit "Hooked on a Feeling," and claims that the opening goofy refrain "Oooga-shucka" later changes to a quieter "Who got sucked off" as the rest of the music fades in. I have that record, and nothing of the sort ever happens.

I worked in New York advertising for five years, on both the creative and business sides. Nothing like this was ever done. Key has no concept of what the advertising world is really about, which is trying to come up with an interesting, honest way to attract someone to a product. It's also about meeting client and printer deadlines. Outside of that, there simply would not be any time to engage in the type of shenanigans Key espouses.

In short, Key's claims come straight from his imagination. He simply has found a niche audience who will believe his ideas without so much as an ounce of proof or critical thinking.

I am not surprised that these pictures are seducing us. Did you notice that nearly all of the ads that the author shows us come from Playboy magazine? He even says so in the book. Call me biased, but this book gives me an icky feeling because he focuses so much on how "Sex" is engraved everywhere. Why does he focus only on that?

As a journalism professor, Key was keen in understanding the way ad media manages its way into our lives with such success. It is a common belief among the likes of us, amateurs in advertising, that commercials don't get to us. Key tries to prove the opposite. He's talking about the practice of "embedding", allegedly used by both advertisers and broadcasters in their process of manufacturing the image of the product we're buying. According to Key, embedding means hiding emotional loaded words or pictures in the background of ads or newspaper photos. If this I could somewhat believe - and, of course (:-), I think of me as an open-minded person -, the moment when he, with the help of his students, starts seeing embedding everywhere, it's a very delicate one. I believe it is good to question one's choices of brands, but I find it hard to believe that everytime I buy something is because the word "sex" or an archetipal image unconsciously recognized by my photographic memory has urged me into acquiring that specifing brand. Moreover, he hasn't got accurate figures to prove his theory. If the icecubes in the Gilbey's gin ad have "sex" printed on, how much has the selling of the brand increased after this 1971 ad was printed? If interested in some prfessional oppinion on this siubject, try Juliann Sivulka's book - Sex, Soap & Cigarettes.

I've been in the advertising business for thirty years. I can't believe this guy has made a living spreading this drivel for so long. People in advertising continue to laugh about Key. He has no understanding about how advertising works, how the people in it do their job, and he shows even less concern about the FACT that subliminal images have little or no effect on human behavior. Maybe someone has airbrushed a naked woman into the image of an icecube, but it was some joker of an illustrator having fun - not part of a deceptive conspiracy. The big question is... did we REALLY land of the moon?

An ground breaking book that finally puts most of the subliminal theory and practice into a very readable and informative format.

an **extraordinarily** silly book. a caketaker. is there a weiner in yr ice cube? is sex written in lemon juice (therefore invisible. just ask a boyscout) all over the advertisement for baby food? why didnt i think of this myself?
marvellous excreta.
similar to the wm castlesque gimickry of inserting "drink coke" frames during movies, which influenced absolutely no-one to drink coke or anything else, "subliminal seduction" combines this subtlety w/ the blatancy of the true wm castle gimmick, "percepto," which wired the seats to give every several moviegoer a shock in the behind during a 4th rate horror flick.
knowing disgruntled designers as i do - & believe me, i do - i can imagine well things like the "little mermaid" "fiasco" (i believe a weiner in an, um, state o' erectile grace hidden on the videobox. goodness it is often not fun to work for a disney subcontractor! anyway) & have seen similar (while having not perpetrated similar. dont get me wrong), done purposefully as sabots thrown amongst the gears of commerce. i have a hardtime imagining some tired & otherwise preoccupied ad execs either deciding or being compelled to insert peculiar, if not obscene, effluvia into their hardwon advertisements. designers would get a kick out of doing this, but it would be known all over town if they did.