Does McDonald's Use Subliminal Advertising . . . And, Does it Work?

One of the questions I'm most often asked is "do companies use subliminal advertising?" Many people believe that it occurs regularly. Take a look at this video showing a very brief McDonald's frame in the midst of Iron Chef. McDonalds denies using subliminal advertising and says it was all an accident, you be the judge.

 So the real question is does short exposure to messages have an impact. It would appear that in the case of video it does. This research from University College London "found the first physiological evidence that invisible subliminal images do attract the brain's attention on a subconscious level."

Another interesting (and highly questionable in terms of ethics) example of subliminal messaging using Hypersonic Sound (very narrow beam of sound directed into a specific area that when encountered sounds as if it is coming from inside your body) happened in New York Last Year. You can read about it here.

Subliminal advertising is definately something that will be tested widely and is being tested widely.

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