Or so the argument goes. All the data makes that very clear. But that's not to say it was inadvertent. The effect cannot be detected during normal viewing.
Critics charge that the ad tries to plant negative images in the minds of viewers.
But people inside and outside the advertising industry are dubious, to put it mildly. People are overtly suckered every day. Still, more than 75 percent of the American public believe marketers use subliminal messages to sell products or services, according to the Journal of Advertising Research. The book's title entered the vernacular and became a fashionable entry on reading lists for college survey courses for a generation. In the book, Packard famously told of a marketing consultant who used a New Jersey theater to flash virtually imperceptible messages onto the movie screen urging patrons to buy Cokes and popcorn.