Week 8: Subliminal Advertising

Shell has been around for decades, if anything its the fathers of all fathers in regards to gasoline. Being around for so long will make you believe that they have established a huge relationship with its customers and are able to continue business with them. But that is not the problem, the problem was to figure out how to appeal to a newer generation with new brands coming out. Dr. Sam Cohen, president of PsychoLogics, a New York-based brand consultancy. “I don’t think the market has ever been so flooded with brands. Companies realize that if they can’t own a piece of the
consumer’s mind, they won’t make it today.”  Shell did something interesting and i believe it was very smart, they decided to put respondents in a trance, and as they awoke, they had realized that they chose a specific gas store not by convenience, but through emotion. The respondents said that it reminded them of their fathers when they were young sitting in the back of their new vehicle. We begin to understand the archetype, and to ‘break the code.’ There is another important difference between today’s captains of consciousness and the psycho-probers of yesteryear.According to Packard’s account, the sociologists, anthropologists and clinical psychiatrists who toiled for the agencies were conflicted, even tortured about their place in his rogues’ gallery of persuaders. They brooded constantly about the implications of their endeavors, and claimed to be wracked with guilt over the morality of using social-scientific methods to manipulate mass audiences.“But I really do believe that advertising can do a better job at providing communications that offer an anchor point and an uplifting to the Volk, as I would call them respectfully.” There are now different ways to make subliminal messages, there are things about it that will remind you of love and your childhood. The way of advertising has drastically changed and will probably continue on changing.