Karen Brown, vice president of communications for the Food Marketing Institute, which represents 1,500 grocery chains, said there has been little, if any, interest in initiating subliminal message programs to curb the estimated annual $1.2 billion in shoplifting. But their numbers are not exactly legion. Meanwhile, some shopping centers reportedly have tried to cash in on subliminal manipulation by repeatedly mixing subtle anti-theft messages with their in-store music programming. For instance, he pointed out that changing just one letter makes the word ''tastes'' into ''testes.'' If cigarette ads used the word ''tastes,'' Key said, readers might subliminally read ''testes'' and see a sexual connotation.Īnd the ideas contained in that book may seem even more dated now that advertisers make little attempt to mask their sales pitches through the use of flashy and sexy quick-edit images that play to the conscious state. Key argued that ad men were manipulating the consumers`īut Key`s assertions seemed strained.
Subliminal messages took a drubbing after some well-publicized instances during the `50s, when the words ''eat popcorn'' flashed across movie screens, and from Wilson Bryan Key`s 1973 book, ''The Subliminal Seduction,'' which had Americans searching ice cubes used in advertisements for foggy images of sex and nudity. He said the appeal for the tapes lies in their ease of use and ''the underlying thread of getting control of your own mind.''īut mind control is one of the concerns that has tarnished the image of subliminal messages. ''There is a growing trend toward using these tapes,'' Lee asserted.
You can even drive while you are listening to messages, he pointed out. ''Basically, people who are skeptical don`t buy the tapes, so we don`t hear from them.''ĭavid Lee, a Santa Monica, Calif., hypnotherapist who also markets a line of tapes, said the subliminal message works just like self-hypnotist, except that it does not require a state of deep relaxation.
Potentials Unlimited markets 160 tape subjects-from self-help and athletic improvement to success and psychic types.īanfill is aware that there are critics of the subliminal message tapes, but he is uncertain how widespread the disaffection is. ''We have had less than a 1 percent return on the tapes,'' he said. Greg Banfill, president of Potentials Unlimited, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., said the company guarantees the effectiveness of its tapes. ''We have had plenty of inquiries from the media but no complaints from buyers,'' the spokesman said. A spokesman at the Federal Trade Commission said there have been no complaints from consumers regarding the tapes, which made their widespread appearances last year. While scientists bemoan the subliminal tapes, buyers are not complaining. Kaplan, like other researchers, said that when consumers report that the tapes have worked, ''it is usually because they are predisposed to believe it will work.''Ī person who buys a weight-loss tape with intentions of dieting may get results from their conscious attempt to make a change-not from any subliminal message, Kaplan said. Leon Kaplan, a Princeton, N.J., consumer behavior psychologist, said, ''I haven`t seen any hard scientific evidence to support the fact that subliminal messages work.'' ''And a lot of people have been asking for the sexuality tapes, so I`ve ordered some of them,'' she said.īut while subliminal tapes continue to make noise at the cash registers, scientists remain skeptical about their effectiveness. Tapes that encouraged people to quit smoking and lose weight were the big sellers, she added. ''And they sold well at Christmas,'' she pointed out. Shamah, who also owns a health food store where the cassettes are sold, said $850 worth of tapes were bought from the first of October to mid-November. Consciously, she couldn`t hear the commands, but she believes her subconscious was getting the message loud and clear. But a few decibels below her range of hearing, she was being urged to lighten up. ''My students told me they noticed the difference,'' she said.įor 45 minutes each day, Shamah would listen to the soothing sounds on the tape. Dorothy Shamah, a 45-year-old English teacher at Claremont High School in Los Angeles, said she used a subliminal message tape to turn her self-described ''combative nature'' into one of cooperation.