Marlboro Subjects Spring Breakers to Subliminal Advertising
I’m a marketer. Yep. I admit it. My profession is right up there with Dentists and Lawyers in terms of the public’s favorite job types. I typically dismiss the ‘evils’ of marketing and advertising, but every once in while something grabs my attention: witness below the underhanded subliminal advertising Marlboro subjects Spring Breakers to in Mexico.
I only noticed this while on a client shoot down there by pure chance (no, I wasn’t in the club shooting Girls Gone Wild)…and the subliminal ad caught my eye for maybe a hair longer than Marlboro would have hoped. My video camera caught the rest…Anyone know if this is illegal?
cspenn@gmail.com said,
Wrote on March 24, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
The FCC classifies any advertisement of 2 frames or less in a 29.97 fps video stream as illegal. This ad looks like it’s taking advantage of persistence of vision, not tachistoscopic imaging, so it’s probably not illegal in either Mexico or the US.
Greg Hollingsworth said,
Wrote on March 24, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
I don’t know about illegal, it’s definitely clever, devilishly so in fact.
Plus, in Mexico, nothing much is illegal in any form.
although, it kind of makes me ashamed of my chosen profession (I’m glad that I smoke Camel.)
C.C. Chapman said,
Wrote on March 24, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
That is pretty damn trippy. No idea about the regulations on this sort of thing.
Great job capturing it
pcorbett said,
Wrote on March 24, 2008 @ 8:08 pm
The fact that not a single person i asked in the club could tell me where the ad was make me think they intentionally concealed it - and for that reason they were aiming to take advantage of it’s imperceptibility.
Why would a brand create and deploy an imperceptible ad? Well….because it’s registered by the subconscious, and can drive behavior. The more i think about this the more it seems just plain wrong. Legal or not.
Sam said,
Wrote on March 24, 2008 @ 11:18 pm
Marketers use subliminal advertising? What’s next? The governemnt? The government paying third-party vendors? Crazy
Marketing Information That Caught My Eye | PowerTeam Marketing Network said,
Wrote on April 4, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
[…] interesting bit of reprehensible subliminal advertising caught in the act - citizen journalist […]