[LINK] Aussie TV network guilty of subliminal ads

[Roger Clarke]

At 9:36 AM +1100 15/10/08, Stilgherrian wrote:
>And all this is based on the pseudo-science which imagines that just
>because a message is brief it is somehow more compelling, which it
>isn't -- or at least this hasn't been proven.

I think Richard and Stil are both missing a key aspect of this.

It's not the brevity that's the major concern;  it's the surreptitiousness.

You know the bus is there, and the 'marketing messages' on it.  Ditto 
the billboards, shop hoardings, shop windows, street signage

The nature of 'subliminal' ads is that they're designed to be 
undetectable by the conscious mind, and to reach directly to the 
sub-conscious.

Whether it's *effective* mind-manipulation / brain-washing / 
insert-preferred-bugbear-here is open to plenty of debate.  (Although 
presumably some corners of the experimental psych literature can shed 
some light on that).

But the practice is objectionable on the grounds of 
surreptitiousness, whether or not it actually does any psychological 
harm.

-- 
Roger Clarke                  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

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Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW