Subliminal Advertising Is Fair To American Consumers

Essay, Research Paper

Why Subliminal Advertising is Fair to American Consumers

The United States ad industry consists of many ad agencies whose job it is to make sure that the American consumers buy their clients products. As many people get smart enough to look past the physical eye tricks the ad may play on them, the ad agencies has turned to subliminal messages to get their message across. From garbage bag advertisements to the advertisements for the hardest type of liquor you can buy, subliminal advertising will almost always affect you without you even knowing it, and its perfectly legal. If a company has the money, the time, and the sense to use the first amendment of the constitution, there is no reason why subliminal messages cannot appear in their advertisements.

To produce a subliminal advertisement, a company must pour in a great deal of money to get the consumer wanting their product. An ad agency can spend anywhere up to $50,000 to create a single, one page magazine layout or flyer, carefully getting every detail to perfection. If a company chooses to use this kind of money to advertise, it is perfectly legal to do so. Subliminal messages are just a more efficient way of advertising by appealing to the consumers subconscious mind and bypassing their decision making mind, swaying them to need something they really do not. However, while subliminal messages may make consumers buy items, they also prevent theft. That elevator music you hear in Sears is not just there because the manager likes it. The first purpose of this music is to lull you into a shopping trance. You will also notice that there are no clocks in Sears. This is to make you loose all track of time if you don t have a watch and this in itself is subliminal. However, underneath the music, in a frequency only audible to the subconscious, there are messages like, “Do not shoplift”, “Stealing is bad”, and “Just buy it”. The messages use key words which the human mind knows are wrong, even if a person s personality thinks they are okay. So subliminal messages prevent theft also.

Making these messages also takes an incredible amount of time. The same advertisements that can take up to $50,000 to make, also take around 3 to 5 months to get every detail just right so the consumer thinks that the images just appear there by coincidence, if the images are even seen by the conscious mind at all. A big time investment for subliminal images is the liquor industry, and mainly those images concentrate on the taboos of society, such as sex and death. Again, these images being entirely legal. Many critics of subliminal advertising claim these images cause consumers to do things other than buy products, like kill themselves. Nevertheless, accusations such as these are quickly dismissed even from courts due to the amount of inconclusive evidence in the cases, mainly because of what different people see in different advertisements. The ad industry also argues their point by saying they have a hard enough time getting the lighting for their ads right, and much less putting images in ice cubes. If an industry chooses to use the mind altering images, what then I ask is wrong with them?

Presently, no laws forbid subliminal messages in advertising. However, some federal agencies have regulations against deceptive representation, yet have yet to directly address subliminal suggestions due to its indefinite consequences. There is no law that forbids a company from making more money. Specifically, in the constitution, the first amendment states : “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” By outlawing subliminal messages in ads, the US government would directly violate the first amendment of the constitution. Since the subliminal messages are protected under law, any person that would even try to go up against one of a number of ad agencies, would surely by crushed by the multi-million dollar corporation. Therefore, if a person wants to be free of subliminal advertising, the only way out is by learning to pick out the hidden messages. The person only takes in what they want to take in, and since there is help to allow people not to want to take in the messages, there is no reason for anyone to complain they cannot help but to buy the things due to subliminal messages.

Ultimately, the ad industry, by using subliminal messages, is just making more money for their clients. By investing huge amounts of money and time every year, companies have, are, and will continue to make consumers buy things they have no need for until the consumers get help. If a corporation wants to use these resources to help their business grow and prevent theft at the same time, there is absolutely no reason why they should be restricted from doing so.