How Popcorn and Coca-Cola Struck Fear Into Western Governments
Popcorn and chilled Cola are the last reasons that would concern many governments and drive them to rash actions simultaneously. This was not the case in the 50s and 60s as these two unrelated things struck fear into the public and many governments.
What brought this fear in the first place and how did it concern millions of people and governments around the world?
James Vicary
In 1957, a little-known market researcher startled the world with an announcement of his so-called startling findings. The man, named James Vicary, proclaimed to have done an experiment and proven a certain phenomenon that is inherent during events where people watch movies.
He “described the results of a six-week test” done on theater-goers and came up with the conclusion that films were capable of propagating subliminal marketing.
According to NewsMDirector, subliminal marketing “aims to encourage the purchase of the product through subtle effects that are not normally visible to the naked eye.”
Vicary’s “study” involved flashing two slogans to an audience: “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coca-Cola.” The fault with his study is the fact that many experts came to the conclusion that the speed at which these “subtle” messages were flashed might have well been too fast to perceive. If the messages were imperceptible to the average individual then what were his findings?
Spike in Sales
Vicary announced an increase in sales for both products. He stated that Coca-Cola experienced a spike of about “57.5%” in popcorn and “18.1%” in Coca-Cola.
Such an announcement could have been a game-changer for many companies that felt the need to boost their sales. The BBC states that he thought this would be a “gamechanger” as traditional advertisement would shift in favor of this new form of advertisement.
His announcement backfired spectacularly and western governments were outraged at the possibility that someone could manipulate the thoughts of the citizenry by just flashing things in the background passively.
The backlash was so sharp that Vicary’s actions were compared to Orwell’s 1984 and there was a keener emphasis on how this “subliminal marketing” worked. In 1958, Western governments banned subliminal messaging without adequate proof of its existence in the first place. Multiple experiments were done to verify Vicary’s claims but they fell flat.
No one could reproduce the results, then what did Vicary come up with in his research?
Fraud and Wealth
Eager people required Vicary to explain how he came up with his results and a few things were brought to light about the research that happened. For instance, “the manager of the cinema involved told Motion Picture Daily that the experiment had no impact.” It was a first-hand account of the experiment failing to yield the desired results.
Vicary went on to announce those claims particularly because he desired to build a business around this psychological phenomenon. His greed and lies turned against him in a spectacular fashion and he only came to admit his folly after a few years when he was pressured into it.
Misinformation and Its Implications
Vicary’s story is one of the many that need to be heard on matters surrounding fake news and the greater implications they could have on societies and governments. The step to authoritarianism could be made by propagating vapid claims that could not be reproduced by any single individual. Governments proved themselves ineffective and at the mercy of one man that made up a lie to serve his agenda.
Further research has been done to prove that subliminal messaging does have a real effect but it has to be under very specific conditions that are almost impossible to replicate in a random setting. It is still worth noting that it is valuable to consider the effects of listening aimlessly to “experts.”
Sources
[1]BBC. “Does Subliminal Advertising Actually Work?” BBC News. Last modified January 20, 2015. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30878843.
[2]Hewstone, Miles, Wolfgang Stroebe, and Klaus Jonas, eds. An introduction to social psychology. Vol. 17. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
[3]NewsMDirector. “11 Examples of Advertising and Marketing with Subliminal Messages.” Cross-Channel Marketing Tool. Last modified July 11, 2017. https://www.mdirector.com/en/digital-marketing/examples-marketing-subliminal-messages.html.
