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It has been 50 years since Vance Packard wrote about psychoanalytical techniques employed by the advertising industry in The Hidden Persuaders. This book, published in the post–World War II consumer boom, exposed a mass audience to motivational research at a time when advertisers used new techniques and a new medium. Yet The Hidden Persuaders was highly criticized and became a scapegoat for purportedly promoting subliminal techniques. Nonetheless, the book helped shape public opinion, advertising regulation, and advertising research and practice. This paper provides a historical approach to Packard’s contribution and ideas in the context of recent theoretical insights into psychological processing and new persuasion practices. 114 The Journal of Advertising of the most important events in American advertising (1704 to 1999; Advertising Age), this paper considers the impact of The Hidden Persuaders on advertising and society. PACKARD AND THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS Then: The Man and the Book Vance Packard (May 22, 1914–December 12, 1996) was born in rural Pennsylvania. He identified himself as a “farm boy” throughout his life, although he moved to State College when he was 10 and became a successful writer living in the affluent suburbs (Horowitz 1994). His identity to others—as a reporter, cultural critic, or a popular sociologist—drew from his education and professional life. Packard earned his B.A. at Pennsylvania State University in 1936 and his master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1937. He was influenced by his Penn State mentor Willard Waller, a professor of the Chicago school of sociology, which used an interdisciplinary approach and drew inspiration from urban journalism and Progressive reform. Waller and Packard wrote articles together debunking accepted views of undergraduate life. Both men considered themselves to be keen observers and critics of everyday life, but as unconventional moralists rather than radical reformers. In his professional life, Packard was a reporter for The Associated Press and for American and Collier’s magazines, working in the mass media from 1937 to 1956 (Horowitz 1994). When Packard lost his job at the American Magazine in 1956—partially due to the downturn of magazine advertising at the advent of television—he decided to write freelance to escape editors’ constraints. The Hidden Persuaders was published less than a year later. Although not his first or last book, The Hidden Persuaders was the most successful. The material for the book on the psychological techniques of advertising was actually commissioned by Reader’s Digest in 1954. It is interesting to note that after the article was written, Reader’s Digest began accepting ads—and the article never actually ran (Horowitz 1994). Packard noted the connection between his critique on the advertising industry and the financial contribution of advertisements to the magazine. In 1955, Packard shared the rejected article with a friend who was editor at the David McKay Company. The friend encouraged him to expand the article into a book. After collecting the research, Packard wrote The Hidden Persuaders within two months. Because of his background, Packard had access to the media industry, knew how to interview people, and was able to write prose for the general public very quickly. The book achieved instant success. The general public appeared ambivalent about advertising and consumer culture during that time period (i.e., the 1950s and 1960s; Zanot 1981). The post–World War II era reflected a time of affluence and an abundance of goods. Because of this gluttony of goods, the entire concept of marketing was undergoing a “reappraisal” (Stern 2004) and a “paradigm shift” (Wilkie and Moore 2003) to stimulate consumer demand. Packard observed this trend when “corporate leaders had shifted ‘from being maker-minded to market-minded’” (Horowitz 1994, p. 106) and wrote about it. He was not the only one. The Hidden Persuaders has been lumped with other popular culture works (e.g., fiction: The Hucksters, The Lonely Crowd, The Organization Man) and academic critiques (e.g., The Affluent Society) of advertising and consumer culture written during this era. The moral tone and ambivalence toward consumer culture reflected in these books resonated with the public. This was the first sustained assault on advertising since the 1930s. In particular, people were fascinated and fearful of the power of advertising as they found themselves targets of new advertising techniques in a wider variety of media. Television rapidly introduced moving-picture emotional advertising and used commercial forms developed in radio, such as the sponsorship of entire programs. Whereas only 9% of American households owned a television in 1950, almost 80% of households owned a television by the time The Hidden Persuaders was published (Sterling and Haight 1978). Packard’s readers could see and hear the persuaders in their own living rooms. Hidden? Persuaders: Subliminal Versus Supraliminal The book’s cover promised a “revealing, often shocking, explanation of new techniques of research and methods of persuasion. ” It gave “facts that show how today’s advertising men are using our hidden urges and frustrations to sell everything from gasoline to politicians. ” Emphasis is on how hidden urges are being uncovered with new research techniques. Yet The Hidden Persuaders is often misinterpreted. Reports of the book refer primarily to advertisers’ insertions of subliminal images into visuals (e.g., Futrelle 1996). Writers mistakenly cite Packard’s brief reference to a New Jersey theater flashing advertisements (for popcorn) as his evidence of the existence of widespread usage of subliminal techniques. Subliminal techniques, “embedding material in print, audio or video messages so faintly that they are not consciously perceived” (Rogers and Smith 1993, p. 10), have been debunked among most advertising professionals and researchers (Pratkanis and Greenwald 1988). Nevertheless, subliminal advertising remains a controversial topic. Heated debates in 2004 and 2005 on the AdForum listserv (comprised of academics and advertising professionals) with respect to a new book on the topic, The Secret Sales Pitch, demonstrated that strong opinions still exist. In actuality, Packard did not use the word subliminal (nor the word popcorn) in The Hidden Persuaders, and devoted very little attention to the process of embedding hidden messages. Three paragraphs on pages 35–36 out of 229 total pages discuss