Note the erupting volcano at the bottom of the glass.

August 17, 2012 1:48 PM

Subliminal messages in advertising
posted by desjardins (95 comments total)

OH MY GOD EVERYTHING IS TITTIES WHEN I DRAW TITTIES ON IT THESE INSIDIOUS ADVERTISERS HOW DID THEY KNOW
posted by phunniemee at 1:50 PM on August 17, 2012 [28 favorites]

I know this isn't the Simpsons thread below, but...

SEX!

Now that we have your attention, vote for Bart!
posted by King Bee at 1:53 PM on August 17, 2012

It's the Internets from 1995! Why oh why did they forget the penis from "The Little Mermaid"; or is that not advertising?!
posted by chavenet at 1:55 PM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm gonna call the sex in this one supra-, not sub-, liminal.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:55 PM on August 17, 2012

Wwwwwow. That's some Vigilant Citizen level awesome.
posted by verb at 1:55 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Related, previously.
posted by phunniemee at 1:56 PM on August 17, 2012

A bit too close to the laughing-at-the-mentally-ill line for me.
posted by laconic skeuomorph at 1:57 PM on August 17, 2012 [11 favorites]

When I was a kid there was a frozen dinner in the grocery store that had "SEX" spelled out in green beans. It was probably a joke from the designers.

And then there was a picture of some salad you could make with mayo on the back of a Hellmann's Mayonnaise, with lots of lettuce and raisins et cetera. It had an OBVIOUS woman's face in it, as well as a chicken's head. My whole family looked at it and agreed.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:57 PM on August 17, 2012

Yeah, the funny thing about this is that many of these adds are overtly sexual. Finding random phalluses in the ice cubes is pretty much uneccessary. Except maybe as a hobby.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:57 PM on August 17, 2012 [11 favorites]

This is bogus, though. They completely lost me at backmasking. Visual? maybe. But not in audio.
posted by dunkadunc at 1:59 PM on August 17, 2012

They completely lost me at backmasking.

That's where they lost you?
posted by mrnutty at 2:01 PM on August 17, 2012 [11 favorites]

Reminds me of +Fravia. Ah, good old days of the web. Not without a significant dash of paranoia.

Pepsi Cola. According to Michael Tsarion, ancient Egyptians used the word pepsi for Satan.

Ah, thanks for that. Also reminds me of Bill Hicks:

Remember that a few years ago, you play albums backwards there are satanic messages? Let me tell you something, if you've ever sat around playing your albums backwards, you are Satan.
posted by iotic at 2:02 PM on August 17, 2012 [5 favorites]

I'd read the link, but the ad compels me to dive into Phelps' meatballs.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:03 PM on August 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

The Gay, Lesbian, & Straight Education Network's logo is an inverted penis and scrotum.
posted by dunkadunc at 2:03 PM on August 17, 2012

A lady goes to the shrink because she's trying to figure out what her whole entire problem is. The psychiatrist, his name is Dave but that's not going to come up again, I just thought you might like to know - anyway, he administers a Rorschach test as is the fashion in humorous narratives such as these.

The first inkblot, which you are able to visualize as simply being an inkblot and not looking like any one thing in particular because you have seen such an inkblot before - he holds this inkblot up and asks her what she sees, and she says, "A lady suckin' a cock."

All right, says the shrink, and he holds up another, and asks again because you've got to do things three times in a joke so this would be the second, so he asks what she sees, and she squints and says, "A man and a woman locked in a passionate sixty-nine. Oh, it looks like his eyes are sort of half-closed in ecstasy, you know, of the sensual sort that you get in situations like those."

Now he holds up the third inkblot and he asks her what this inkblot looks like to her, and she looks at it and now she says, "A threesome - two guys and a girl - and there's definite chemistry between the guys too but nothing is being spoken of it on this night, maybe if this happens between them again they might sort of nervously explore the possibilities of one another's bodies, and anyway right now they're doing DP so one of them is up to the nuts in lady guts. And she's totally on board with this development."

The shrink - see, the thing is that since this is a joke it is okay for him to have come up with a complete diagnosis after maybe a minute, and for it to be something really simple - he says, "Well, I've found your problem, Miss Jones," that's her name by the way and I'm sorry I forgot to say before, "I've found your problem. You're obsessed with sex."

Miss Jones makes a sort of outraged face and she says, "I'm obsessed with sex? You're the one showing me all these dirty pictures!"
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 2:03 PM on August 17, 2012 [43 favorites]

and this site made me think of that.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 2:03 PM on August 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

> there was a frozen dinner in the grocery store that had "SEX" spelled out in green beans.

I don't think SEX spelled out in green beans makes me want sex OR green beans.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:04 PM on August 17, 2012 [7 favorites]

If you think these ads are bad, wait until you get a load of a Rorschach test.
posted by crunchland at 2:05 PM on August 17, 2012

MetaFilter: up to the nuts in lady guts.

this may actually qualify as my least-liked phrase in the history of language.
posted by davejay at 2:05 PM on August 17, 2012 [10 favorites]

Wow, way to ruin the delivery of a joke dude. Why not just tell it? That was like, a hipster rendition of a joke. omg
posted by ReeMonster at 2:05 PM on August 17, 2012 [13 favorites]

Look out, folks, it's going to be a battle of the monsters.
posted by benito.strauss at 2:09 PM on August 17, 2012 [12 favorites]

So that's why they call it the blue.
posted by phaedon at 2:12 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

As a graphic designer, I can tell you this happens all the time. It's what PhotoShop artists do when they are bored.

Sometimes, it makes it in print. That's when you want to send a resume into an agency, because heads roll when the client sees it.
posted by Mcable at 2:13 PM on August 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

Just because this guy produces a few salacious examples of imagery, his exclamations of conspiracy do an overblown job of stripping away and revealing the naked truth about advertising. His exegesis is so weak, I need to use Xanax to deal with the depression it produces. Extreme claims, explanations exposing nothing real, fill the site. And to top it off, the website design is as modern as using a sextant to navigate from Sussex to Essex.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 2:14 PM on August 17, 2012 [21 favorites]

It's not hard to find hidden pictures in ads, especially anything with ice cubes. The dirty little secret is that subliminal messages don't do anything. They have been studied over and over - no effect on buying behavior. Mostly, it's bored graphic artists stickin it to tha man.
posted by SkinnerSan at 2:14 PM on August 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

beat me to it!
posted by SkinnerSan at 2:15 PM on August 17, 2012

Remember that a few years ago, you play albums backwards there are satanic messages? Let me tell you something, if you've ever sat around playing your albums backwards, you are Satan.

If you play a Nickelback song backwards, you'll hear a message from the devil. Even worse, if you play it forwards, you'll hear Nickelback.

But yeah, what SkinnerSan said. Subliminal messages don't do anything.
posted by Infinite Jest at 2:18 PM on August 17, 2012 [9 favorites]

A few compelling examples. A ton of pareidolia.
posted by es_de_bah at 2:18 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Note that the ice-cube area surrounding the rabbit's engorged penis is creamy white."

what
posted by elizardbits at 2:24 PM on August 17, 2012 [14 favorites]

Realestate sites will sometimes put something kinda crazy in images of homes. I'm sure everyone remembers the dildo incident and there have been others. It drives trafic to the site.

There a people with a peculiar fetish. They like to plant naked pictures of themselves on the web. You can sometimes find them on ebay. They use tricks like putting up listing of perfectly ordinary yet reflective items. When you look at the pictures closely you can sometimes find certain body parts reflected on the surface of the items. This is now know as reflectoporn.
posted by Ad hominem at 2:24 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

A few compelling examples. A ton of pareidolia.

"Pareidolia" seems like just a jumble of letters, but I bet it actually means something... Hmm... Oh, I get it now. Pareidolia is an anagram for "A AD LIE I PRO".

You're clearly in on the whole thing!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:26 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

When you look at the pictures closely you can sometimes find certain body parts reflected on the surface of the items.

I wanna do that except with Slenderman.
posted by elizardbits at 2:31 PM on August 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

I wanted a drink earlier (what a week!) and these frosty bottles of booze aren't helping counter that. (ooh, 31 minutes and I can go home and mix up a Negroni.)
posted by vespabelle at 2:31 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

There a people with a peculiar fetish. They like to plant naked pictures of themselves on the web. You can sometimes find them on ebay. They use tricks like putting up listing of perfectly ordinary yet reflective items. When you look at the pictures closely you can sometimes find certain body parts reflected on the surface of the items. This is now know as reflectoporn.

I... I don't know whether to believe this or not. I have discovered the precise boundary between the two states.
posted by winna at 2:33 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, um, a lot of these are less "subliminal" than just cheeky. The rest are just stupid.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:34 PM on August 17, 2012

I... I don't know whether to believe this or not. - example.
posted by crunchland at 2:35 PM on August 17, 2012

I... I don't know whether to believe this or not. - example.

I'm a little teapot, short and stout...
posted by Mojojojo at 2:37 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I... I don't know whether to believe this or not. I have discovered the precise boundary between the two states.

I wonder if there's a type of porn concerning figuring out which seemingly non-porny things actually have porn associated with them? MetaPorn, if you will.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:38 PM on August 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

There a people with a peculiar fetish. They like to plant naked pictures of themselves on the web. You can sometimes find them on ebay. They use tricks like putting up listing of perfectly ordinary yet reflective items. When you look at the pictures closely you can sometimes find certain body parts reflected on the surface of the items.

One time I accidentally sent a picture of a boyfriend of mine in his underpants to my entire family.

We were in the kitchen, and I was taking a picture of a cereal box I knew my family would find funny for family in-joke reasons. Little did I know I also took a picture of the highly reflective microwave and everything sitting at the kitchen table.

I have never wanted life to come with an undo button more than I did the moment I saw it (which was of course approximately ten seconds after hitting send).
posted by phunniemee at 2:38 PM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think his tinfoil hat is really reflectoporn.
posted by arcticseal at 2:38 PM on August 17, 2012

Nothing like tiny, grainy images to prop-up the crazy.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:43 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't get it, I read the whole thing and I don't want to have sex, I want to buy high quality branded goods at low, low prices.
posted by The Whelk at 2:51 PM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I... don't think those Spirit Airlines ones are subliminal.
posted by lovecrafty at 2:52 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I could swear that this is actually a satirical site to mock the idea of subliminal imaging... "look at the subliminal stuff in this picture" > ordinary picture, no clues.

I have a copy of "Subliminal Seduction" from which some of his "handbook" examples have come. Those s-e-x icecubes are always good for a laugh.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 3:06 PM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

Remember that THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS in such high costing productions. Every little detail is carefully preplanned and thought out several times. AT&T's "More Bars in More Places" commercials give us an excellent example of this. Unsuspecting person sees it as a sequence of random scenes while in fact every single scene has a reference to those bars showing the strength of cell service in a given location.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:15 PM on August 17, 2012

Delightfully loony
posted by KokuRyu at 3:16 PM on August 17, 2012

"Super-liminal?"
"I'll show you."
posted by emmtee at 3:22 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Wow, way to ruin the delivery of a joke dude. Why not just tell it? That was like, a hipster rendition of a joke. omg

you mad cause im stylin on u
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 3:26 PM on August 17, 2012 [6 favorites]

I guess that explains why when I see an ad for a Subway sandwich I don't want to eat it, I want to screw it.
posted by mazola at 3:28 PM on August 17, 2012

The way they thrust the meat into the buns is indeed very, uh.

i've said too much
posted by elizardbits at 3:33 PM on August 17, 2012

Yawn. This sort of "radical" "conspiracy" "exposé" has been done to death (no pun intended) again and again and again over the past 30 years, if not more. Is every generation going to have to "learn" it all over again?
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:41 PM on August 17, 2012

A lot of these are the very same images that were getting trotted out as proof back in the 70's, when they were contemporary. There's always sex in the ice cubes.

Sure, people do it, but I'd say it's maybe 1/4 intentional, 1/4 incidental, and 1/2 made up. These days, we don't need subliminal because it's just straight up in your face.

Hey, lonely, bored guy -- buy a six-pack of this beer, or this car, or this cologne, or this Blackberry, and the hot babes will positively flock to you.
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:58 PM on August 17, 2012

OK, the original post is a steaming pile of .... sandwich, but there is a truly large body of research on the perception of words without awareness, i.e., "subliminal" perception. We're talking several hundred studies in which the main manipulation is to present a word under conditions that prevent the subject from being aware of its presence. For example, a trial might consist of a something like this:

XXXXX (250 msec)
book (40 msec)
XXXXX (500 msec)

with all of these events occurring at the same location on a computer screen.

The subject is only aware of seeing the XXXs (the "forward" and "backward" masking patterns; the expression "backmasked" is a loony neologism). There are various ways to determine whether and to what extent the subject has processed the "unseen" word. For example, you see if the subliminal word has an effect on the subject's response to a related word presented in the clear (e.g., PAPER) vs. an unrelated word (CHAIR). You can approximate this setup pretty well using Powerpoint.

The short answer is that the meanings of some words are activated under these conditions. But, not all words, and the range of effects is pretty narrow. Nothing like "must go buy product". There have to be a lot of trials to pick up any effects, and they are small.

The post doesn't really work that well as a joke because some urban legends simply will not completely die and so get revived way too often anyway.
posted by cogneuro at 4:02 PM on August 17, 2012

Years ago, I remember a gentleman named Sketch Erickson made the rounds going from church to church with a slide show and a collection of "demonic songs" that were his version of a scathing critique of modern culture.

Apparently his efforts began back when vinyl was more popular.
posted by hgswell at 4:04 PM on August 17, 2012

Metafilter: a nice big cock.

(what, you don't see it in the thread?)
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:04 PM on August 17, 2012 [6 favorites]

I just love the fact that someone in charge of grabbing images for TV news stories "accidentally" got a Krispy Kreme photo based on a Chris Rock joke.

(also further love the notion that the author honestly thinks it was done intentionally by the network)
posted by ShutterBun at 4:06 PM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

I just love the fact that someone in charge of grabbing images for TV news stories "accidentally" got a Krispy Kreme photo based on a Chris Rock joke.

This fpp has given me... junior high school powers.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:12 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Sorry, forgot to complete the thought.

Sketch's slide show was centered around these exact same images and making sure people saw all the sex and innuendo that was out there just waiting to corrupt the youth. He was quite serious about it. He even had a merchandise table waiting to sell posters and other odds and ends that were all designed to help people see the Devil around them.
posted by hgswell at 4:14 PM on August 17, 2012

Is there such a thing as being blatantly subliminal? French Connection - French Connection UK, that is - once hired an ad agency which came up with a clever abbreviation of the company name. For about five years in the late 90s it was hard to walk down the street without seeing shirts reading 'fcuk her' and 'get fcuked', and any complaints would be met with the company smiling sweetly and pointing out it was a mere abbreviation...
posted by mippy at 4:28 PM on August 17, 2012

Most of this stuff is just scanned from books by Wilson Brian Key like Subliminal Seduction. Most of the stuff dated after that, don't use subliminal sexual images, they're just overt. It's a lot easier to use blatant sex in advertising, than to try to sneak it in subliminally. Believe me, I know, back in the early 90s, I used to work as a digital retoucher and had a lot of ad agencies as clients, and I have inserted subliminals into print ads. I have no idea if it works, I don't care if it works, as long as I get paid.

I first heard about subliminals when I was taking drawing classes in art school. I tried some experiments, I put little subliminal words and images in colors on B&W drawings. They were barely perceptible even to me, but when my drawings got critiqued, the instructor would always point right at them when she pointed out good parts of my drawings. It's hard to tell if the subliminals were effective, maybe I just did better drawing work on those areas, to conceal the embeds cleverly.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:31 PM on August 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

My advertising professor said that even negative reactions to an ad produce a stronger likelihood that someone will buy your product
posted by thomasslavin at 4:39 PM on August 17, 2012

"Their excuse was that the on-air graphics operator got this image from Google Images and used it without thorough examination. This is of course not true. They knew exactly what they were doing."

There is an awful lot of compliance training for those working in broadcast radio or television. If they did, they did it with the knowledge that they would be queueing at the job centre the next day. It's not uncommon for the pressures and speed of live TV to lead to stupid mistakes.
posted by mippy at 4:42 PM on August 17, 2012

Homeopathic marketing.
posted by gallois at 4:44 PM on August 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

My advertising professor said that even negative reactions to an ad produce a stronger likelihood that someone will buy your product

One of the biggest things hampering more scientific study of advertising and marketing is that almost any advertisement will result in an increase in sales.
posted by The Whelk at 4:47 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

The article as a whole reminds me of something from the Bill Bryson book where he travelled across America - The Lost Continent I think it was. He was talking about the Grand Teton mountains, and how 'teton' is a vulgar French word for a lady's bosom. 'i could imagine two lonely explorers, far from home, pointing to the misshapen mountains and deciding that they looked kind of like tits.'
posted by mippy at 4:49 PM on August 17, 2012 [3 favorites]

Haha, the joke is the subliminal advertising is in the program and it so simple and straight forward most people never even notice.
posted by psycho-alchemy at 4:55 PM on August 17, 2012

Metafilter: There's always sex in the ice cubes
posted by rhiannonstone at 4:59 PM on August 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

From the source code of this very page: content="DCFfHJ4UQbMnfKaS453mfXvyeqtaeZwGSKSjFmv3"/>
posted by sfenders at 5:00 PM on August 17, 2012 [4 favorites]

I read that in the same tone as 'There's always money in the banana stand'.
posted by mippy at 5:10 PM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: There's always sex in the ice cubes

Ummm... I didn't order a white Russian.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:22 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Most of the stuff dated after that, don't use subliminal sexual images, they're just overt. It's a lot easier to use blatant sex in advertising, than to try to sneak it in subliminally.

There is an eBay seller who likes to sell camera batteries with a bikini model holding the product. When I'm searching for cheap, bulk batteries on eBay, my wife notices those images right away, and always gets a good laugh.
posted by Cog at 6:21 PM on August 17, 2012

I don't know, guys, there may be something to this. I've been seeing "proudly protruding schlong" guy in every pack of Camels I've seen in the last 30 years. Right about the time I read a similar article about the same thing. He's there, all right.

And the Spirit Airlines ads made me laugh out loud. Subliminal my ass.
posted by wallabear at 7:08 PM on August 17, 2012

They should just have done with it and market "Erect Penis brand Peanut Butter" or "Labia White Rum"

Save time
posted by mattoxic at 7:08 PM on August 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

Please reverse those two. "Stiff drink" joke thanks you.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:12 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

My highschool sex ed teacher once gave a slideshow lecture very similar to this, where "subliminal" sexual and sexist images were Truth to Powered out of a variety of mundane advertisements.

It's easy to be dismissive, however this lecture also marked my Matrix-like awakening to the fact that Joe Camel's face is, in fact, a giant set of cock n' balls. Leave it to high school teachers to out gutter-mind their hormone ravaged students.
posted by dgaicun at 7:18 PM on August 17, 2012

Somewhat related: a Peet Hein grook about

DREAM INTERPRETATION
Simplified.
Everything's either
concave or -vex,
so whatever you dream
will be something with sex.

posted by fredludd at 7:24 PM on August 17, 2012

MetaPorn, if you will.

It's Raining FH: I know where the AskMe and MetaTalk links are, but I've never seen the link for MetaPorn. Shall I make this my question for the week?
posted by BlueHorse at 8:21 PM on August 17, 2012

Durn Bronzefist: "Metafilter: a nice big cock.

(what, you don't see it in the thread?)"

Now that you mention it, fpp does look a lot like fap.
posted by IndigoRain at 9:26 PM on August 17, 2012

Oh dear. A bunch of marketers got together and wrote a silly article to make criticism of advertising look like a batshitinsane tinfoil-hat activity. I call "false flag" on this shit.
posted by kengraham at 9:39 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

faces in the broccoli
posted by changeling at 11:34 PM on August 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I was hardcore into the Wilson Bryan Key books back in the early '80s. The brain is an amazing pattern-recognition engine, and if you spend enough time training it to try and spot something like the word SEX, you start to see it everywhere. Including in the texture of Ritz crackers (as Key insisted)...or your living-room carpet, or the asphalt in the street out in front of your house. Which is the point at which I realized what was actually going on, and got really really embarrassed about writing to my favorite comic-book publisher about the "subliminal embeds" I had spotted in their artwork.
posted by Lazlo at 12:05 AM on August 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

I... I don't know whether to believe this or not. - example.

Not sure why I was expecting subtlety.
posted by krinklyfig at 12:25 AM on August 18, 2012

The article has one of my biggest pet peeves: they found an icon for an app on the iOS App Store which they label as "Apple's App, iCount." That's like saying "Wal-Mart's chips, Doritos."

Also, hasn't the article writer heard of Hanlon's Razor?
posted by sleeping bear at 12:28 AM on August 18, 2012

faces in the broccoli

Oh man, I saw those guys open for Jeff Beck.
posted by krinklyfig at 12:43 AM on August 18, 2012

Years ago, I worked at an ad agency in Maine and a potential client - a motel owner - said he wanted his logo reworked to into subliminal logo. I was so fascinated with his request, it actually triggered that ASMR tingly skin thing for me, heh. He really thought we could embed subliminal images in his motel sign that would increase his business. He wouldn't specify what, but I take it that he meant something to do with ess-ee-ex.

Well he was just a naive guy and I politely dissuaded him of the notion. But I often thought I should have said "Subliminal? We charge double for that" and then just given him back the same logo. "You can't see it - it's that subliminal - but just wait!"
posted by madamjujujive at 8:01 AM on August 18, 2012 [1 favorite]

mjj, he wanted it "reworked"? You know what he meant by that, of course. No wonder you got the tinglies.
posted by gorgor_balabala at 10:40 AM on August 18, 2012

The SEX in the ice cubes seemed so familiar to me-- I'm pretty sure my parents had one of the early "sex in advertising" books on their shelf.

The one that made me snort with laughter was the boy scout selling Pepsi in Hike's Over. Sure the word SEX is hidden in one guy's shirt but the other scout, the one facing us, sure looks like he is stroking himself. OK maybe it is just his tie, but it sure looks suggestive. The question is, "Does seeing a boy scout stroke himself make me want to buy Pepsi?" I don't have any desire to buy Pepsi so maybe I'm not the target audience.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:34 AM on August 18, 2012

I'm pretty sure about that, aren't I. Maybe the subliminal thing is working; it is giving me confidence!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:36 AM on August 18, 2012

The walls in my house are all knotty pine, and on my wife's side of the bed there's clearly an ostrich who watches us sleep. There are several American presidents on the walls in the great room, and by the chimney I once noticed the Incredible Hulk, but as seen from below. My carpenter was crazy, man.
posted by jwhite1979 at 2:48 PM on August 18, 2012

One of the first comments on the site links to a video on the BBC website with an interview with some guy. The commenter said that after reading the site, he noticed that the man's forehead had "sex" subliminally marked on it.

Which basically sums up how I feel about this site.
posted by Night_owl at 6:53 PM on August 18, 2012

fnord
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:09 PM on August 18, 2012

No mention of the 1 and 2 euro coins? Everyday, millions of people walking around with images of flacid penises and testicles etched on metal discs, jangling around and bouncing of each other in their pockets. Then passing them from grubby hand to grubby hand in exchange for goods and serivces. C'mon people, is it any wonder the Euro is in crisis?
posted by Elmore at 1:28 PM on August 19, 2012

Everyday, millions of people walking around with images of flacid penises and testicles etched on metal discs, jangling around and bouncing of each other in their pockets.

Pictures or it didn't happen.
posted by chavenet at 7:00 AM on August 20, 2012

I see it! I see it!!

Wait, no I didn't.

But there's definitely sex on a five dollar bill.
posted by BlueHorse at 3:27 PM on August 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

I love the ideas behind advertising! reminds me of a 4 part BBC documentary about Edward Bernays called Century of the Self. It explains how he used similar techniques to "show major corporations how to make people WANT things they didn't need by linking mass produced goods to their unconscious desires". Brilliant! but morally questionable.
I never looked at an advertisement the same after watching this.
posted by cusack01 at 6:14 AM on August 24, 2012