Subliminal Messages in Advertising and Media
...evision and thanks to subliminal messages and many TV shows the term became popular and in 1991 the Webster’s Dictionary added it to its latest version. Other benefits these messages bring to the audience are the tapes that are designed for smokers to help them quit their addiction. The way they make this tapes is the same way as the commercials, certain words are included in the background of the music and the consumer’s brain gets the message. It has been proved that the people using these tapes do not quit smoking 100%, but they seriously decrease the use of cigarettes in a regular basis (McIntyre.) However, subliminal messages can also have bad influence in us humans. For example, in many songs nowadays the usage of this type of message is very common, as well as in movies which include negative hidden images or words that is not caught the first time we see or hear them. In music, these messages can usually be heard when played backwards. An example of this is the Led Zeppelin song, “Stairway to heaven”, in which the message says something about Satan and his “holy path.” Another song that includes hidden messages is “another one bites the dust” by the group Queen, in which the chorus , when played backwards says: “it’s fun to smoke marijuana.” Usually when subliminal messages are used, they are about sex and topics related to it. Advertisers still use subliminal messages today. The most common types of subliminal messages that are displayed today represent sex and power. Studies have shown several huge companies currently use subliminal messages in their ads, movies, cartoons, music, and television shows (McIntyre.) One example of this is Disney, some of their movies have sexual messages hidden in them or on their video covers. The Little Mermaid, which included the figure of a penis hidden in the cover and poster of the movie. The movie Aladdin, included a message in one of the main scenes, when Aladdin, the main character, was fighting with tiger, the words “teenagers take off their clothes”. The Lion King included the word sex spelled with dust while the air was blowing. And finally the movie The rescuers the picture of a naked women appeared on the background of one of the main scenes of the movie (Urban Legends Reference Pages.) These are not the only movies that handle hidden messages. The movie the exorcist had many edited messages to cause more panic and horror with viewers. And some people say that the movie JFK, directed by Oliver Stone, had messages also. The messages in this movie were trying to portrait the ex-president as a mason or tied him to secret societies (Choking on Popcorn.) Obscenity and nudity might be great advertisers for many companies, but it gives the consumer a very bad image of the product, although it often sells very much . Now it is more common for magazines to show ads of many well known brands with models wearing jeans and no shirt, or in very compromising positions with a model of the opposite sex. This might have a targeted audience, but it usually reaches the non intended one, like kids and teenagers. It is very true, “sex sells”, and advertising companies know that because if it did not work they would not continue using it. The most common phrase hidden in ads is the word “sex”: Key claims that advertisers u...