Conclusion

“We find advertising works the way the grass grows. You can never see it, but every week you have to mow the lawn.”

Andy Tarshis, A.C. Nielsen Companyquoted in Mayer (1991: 179–80)

To finish up I'll try to summarize what the book has covered and what subconscious seduction is.

Going back to the start of our journey, I showed that the preferred view of the advertising and marketing industry is that ads are simply there to convey a persuasive message to the public at large. That view has been proven to be over-simplistic by a whole range of eminent researchers, including Scott, Krugman, and Ehrenberg. But their theories, suggesting as they did that advertising doesn't receive much attention and doesn't change attitudes, were seen as inferior to persuasion. What these pioneers were not able to do was provide a plausible explanation for how advertising might work effectively without being persuasive.

Yet it is clear that advertising can work without being overtly persuasive. Three ads – two where the message was never recalled (O2, Renault Clio) and one where there was no message at all (Telma) – managed to build highly successful brands, and a fourth (Orange) managed to change attitudes despite no recall and no one knowing who it was for.

One reason it was so hard to explain how ads like these worked is that it is only in the last two decades that we have developed the necessary understanding of psychology. During this time we have transformed what we know about how we learn, especially at low levels of attention, and how much we store in implicit memory. We have transformed our knowledge of the different mental processes we use when we are learning, and discovered fascinating defense mechanisms like counter-argument and perceptual filtering which can interfere with communication processing. We have transformed our knowledge of how we process emotion without attention, and even changed the way we view consciousness itself. And of course we now know that emotional communication plays a key part in decision-making and our relationships.

As a result, we are able to turn much of what was believed by the persuasion lobby on its head. For example, the idea that creativity makes us like and pay more attention to ads turns out to be wrong; if anything, we tend to pay less attention to creative ads because we don't feel threatened by them. But the less attention we pay, the less we counter-argue, so the more effective the subconscious communication of emotional influence is.

So, in a nutshell, what this new learning in psychology reveals is that we are extraordinarily vulnerable to emotive communication. I've identified three main ways in which emotive communication influences us, but there are very probably some others.

How Emotive Communication Influences us Subconsciously

The first way is via the agency of Emotionally Competent Stimuli (ECS). ECS can comprise any number of different entities, ranging from music, to slogans, to characters, to inanimate artifacts. What these all have in common is that when they are perceived they trigger a concept that is able to influence our emotions. On their own they have no effect on our behavior; it is only when we see or hear them repeatedly exposed in advertising alongside a particular brand that they take on any significance. When this happens the ECS becomes linked to the brand in our mind, and subconsciously conditions us to feel that the brand has the same emotional values as that generated by the ECS. It then becomes transformed into an Emotively Competent Brand Association.

The second way is by influencing the relationship we have with a brand. Although it sounds a little far-fetched, we feel a certain level of attachment to almost everything we use, from a pair of tweezers to a car. The extent of the emotional values of these attachments are usually subconscious, and that is why they can be so easily influenced subconsciously. Every piece of communication we receive, from a simple nod to a 90-second TV commercial, is packed full of elements that “qualify” the message that is being communicated. These elements are known as “metacommunication,” and in advertising they can are generally known as Creativity. We are often not consciously aware of metacommunication, but our subconscious is extraordinarily sensitive to it. We can instantly sense if a nod is a happy nod, a cautious nod, a grumpy nod, or an angry nod, and so on. In the same way we are expert at subconsciously decoding creativity. So this creativity is able to covertly influence our brand relationships, which in turn covertly influence our brand attachment and make us more (or occasionally, less) likely to purchase the brand.

Our emotions also influence us in a third way, which is by acting as a subconscious gatekeeper to all our rational decisions. We are physically unable to make a decision if our emotions will not allow us to, and occasionally, when we are in a rush, our emotions can effectively make decisions for us via our intuition. So emotional content in advertising can subconsciously influence even our most rational and well-thought-out decisions.

To give you a better idea of how advertising “seduces” our subconscious I'm going to revisit some of the advertising case studies we looked at earlier in the book, but now I shall do so using the Subconscious Seduction model I developed in Part Four.

A Case Study Retrospective

Let's start with the O2 campaign. The way in which this worked is explained in a Gold Award-winning paper for the subsequent campaign, entered for the 2006 IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards. The paper's authors make the following comment on the early campaign:

O2 … created … a stylised universe built around blue and a stream of bubbles. This evoked freedom, clarity, and fresh air; O2 feels calm and serene, the antithesis to clutter and chaos, a contrast to the often frenetic world around mobile phones. (Maunder & Cook 2007: 106)

Using my book The Hidden Power of Advertising as a source, they go on to say “Emotional attachment to a brand is strongly enhanced by such non-rational non-verbal communication” (Maunder & Cook 2007: 106). And that's one aspect of the Subconscious Seduction model in a nutshell. It doesn't seem very likely to any of us that a calm and serene advertisement with no particularly relevant message can achieve much, because we expect advertising to be trying to get our attention and tell us something that will persuade us to do something. We are not that concerned when advertising just seems to be enhancing our emotional attachment, because that doesn't seem all that important. We are so in awe of our “thinking” brain that it never occurs to us that advertising might be quietly influencing what we buy by subconsciously seducing our “feeling” brain.

What about the Renault Clio campaign? You'll remember that this was the most successful small car launch ever in the UK, because of the Papa and Nicole advertising. I think it is easy now to see why. First, Papa and Nicole were the epitome of romantic sexiness: they were respectful of their lovers (kissing them and giving them flowers) and above all were French (and we all feel the French are the most romantic nation in the world). Second, Papa and Nicole were evidently a “class” act: they were good-looking, they had a magnificent chateau, and they wore beautiful clothes. That would have reinforced the marker everyone in the UK has that the French understand what style is all about. Seeing Papa and Nicole over and over again linked them inextricably (and consciously) with the Renault Clio, subconsciously conditioning us to feel that it was an exceptionally stylish and sexy little car.

The Clio advertising also explains why the Citroën Xsara ad was such a failure. Claudia Schiffer's striptease as she walks down the stairs may be sexy, but it isn't remotely romantic. The feeling this ad created was one of exploitation and lack of respect for women. That's the absolute opposite of what people want to feel their car stands for.

But from the point of view of subconscious seduction the most inspired part of the Clio ad is the message about big car luxury combined with small car nippiness. Not, I hasten to add, because it changed our beliefs or attitudes about the car. I'm pretty sure this message had little if any influence on our attitudes to the car, because our innate scepticism would automatically have counter-argued that all small cars are “nippy” by definition, and most of them are pretty comfortable. No, the clever thing about the message is just the fact that it was there. Because there was a message that justified all of Papa and Nicole's antics, it never really occurred to anyone that the ad might be working in any other way. No one regarded their sexy behavior and stylishness as forming any part of what was meant to be being communicated about the car. And so no one made any attempt to counter-argue the “sexy and stylish” conditioning, because we had no real idea it was going on.

It is perhaps a bit less easy to explain how the Telma Noodles advertising was such a success, because I can't show you the visuals or play you the music. You just have to take it for granted that the visuals portrayed joyful, vibrant, and slightly rebellious young people contrasted with their grumpy and irritable parents. These images, processed over and over again, would have exerted a powerful influence on the relationship between young people and the brand. Subconsciously, they would have felt it was on their side (not their parents’ side) and as a consequence “their” sort of food brand. In addition to this, the music, repeatedly processed semi-consciously, would have acted not only to reinforce the feeling of fun and energy, but as a branding surrogate for Telma. We might speculate that if the music had not become famous, the ad might have simply sunk into anonymity. Lastly, the gibberish dialogue means that when you watch the ad you spend most of your time trying to work out what is being communicated in it, and that, like the message in the Renault Clio ad, takes your mind off the visuals and music and prevents them being counter-argued.

What of the Orange J.D. Power advertisement? This, you'll remember, was about how Orange had won the J.D. Power award for customer service for a second year running. This ad managed to influence attitudes towards the brand amongst those who recognized the ad, even though no one seemed to have much idea who it was for.

I suspect this worked in the same way as the O2 campaign. Many mobile phone buyers are young, and young people are very sensitive to having the coolest brand on the market. The black-and-white Orange J.D. Power ad was certainly very cool and stylish. It was beautifully shot and, like O2, had very hypnotic and serene music. I think these attributes might have been enough to make young people feel Orange was a little more “classy” than the others, and so feel more attached to it than the other brands on the market. A clue is that the positive attitude shift amongst those who had seen the ad was seen across most of the image dimensions, not just those relating to good service.

The British Airways advertising with its wonderful music we have dealt with in some detail. This is an example of a branded association that conditions us subconsciously to feel that traveling in the airline will be wonderfully relaxing and comfortable. Again, the clever thing is that the ad has a message, and that means we don't pay attention to or counter-argue the influence of the music, because we don't see it as being an important part of the communication.

The Andrex puppy advertising works similarly. The “soft, strong, and very long” message distracts us while the puppy subconsciously conditions us to feel that Andrex is a loving family-oriented company, and their toilet paper, like the puppy, is soft. But here again, as with Stella Artois, the ambition of the ad agency to adapt and change a proven successful formula has resulted in what I regard as a major miscalculation. First, the cute puppy was given a voice and allowed to talk, and then it was replaced by a computer-animated puppy. In my opinion neither of these artificial representations of the puppy are able to generate the conceptual values of softness and family love that the original did, so it will be interesting to see if over the next few years Andrex's sales start to decline.

The Hamlet ad is a little more complex. In this case there is no real message about the product itself, and the ads are ostensibly jokes which are being “sponsored” by Hamlet. That could be seen as having been an attempt by the brand to manipulate the relationship we have with it, using “like my ad, like my brand” mechanism. But this is very obvious and I think something that could easily be counter-argued. Much more likely I think is that the humor distracts us from realizing that the advertising is conditioning us to feel that smoking a cigar will relax us and drive away our worries.

What about the meerkats and Gio Compario? Do these seduce our subconscious? I'm not sure. Although the meerkats might seem cute and cuddly, they are not real meerkats, they are imaginary meerkats that talk. What you see – a rather daft invented story aimed at getting the name of the web site into your head – might well be all you get. There might be an element of goodwill generated by the meerkats, and that might encourage some people to feel more attached to Compare the Market than other sites, but so far that hasn't earned them market leadership in site traffic.

As for the others – Levi’s, Cadbury's Gorilla, and the Michelin Babies – I hope I've explained how these work already. But these examples are just the tip of an iceberg. There are countless other advertising campaigns that use the Subconscious Seduction Model. A few, like the Hamlet ad and the Marlboro Cowboy, advertised products that we now know are harmful, and should clearly be proscribed. But the greater difficulty we face is how we decide if there is any harm in the rest.

For example, assuming Nike are a reputable company, why shouldn't they use their exceptionally potent tick-like swoosh as their logo? And why shouldn't they use the similarly potent phrase “Just do it” as their slogan? One might say the only people who suffer are their competitors.

And that's the tricky problem with advertising that seduces our subconscious. In many instances it is just a case of one company being fortunate, clever, or perceptive enough to latch onto a symbol, slogan, or advertising idea that others have overlooked. If Renault, Andrex, Cadbury’s, Telma, Orange, Stella Artois, Michelin, VW, Tesco, Stella Artois, and Nike hadn't used this way of advertising, they would have been a lot less successful, and we would have missed out on some exceptionally clever and entertaining advertising.

A Force for Evil or Good?

Most of you reading this book will be grown-ups. In one area the dilemma is more important, and that is for children. Is it right that cereal manufacturers should be allowed to use advertising to create cartoon characters that appeal to children, when the products they are advertising contain significant quantities of added sugar? Is it right that video games makers should be allowed to use scenes of warfare and violence to advertise games to children that might encourage them into antisocial behavior? Given the dangers of addiction, should we allow brewers to advertise beer using funny ads? Does the Subconscious Seduction model mean we need to be a lot more vigilant about the sorts of campaigns that our children see? I suspect it does.

On this subject here is a fascinating story. After I had left advertising I did some consultancy work for a market research company. As part of my job I had to attend a research conference in London, where I met the person who was responsible for BMW marketing.

Over a drink at the bar our discussion turned to advertising. Using the slogan “The Ultimate Driving Machine,” BMW produced outstanding advertising for over 30 years in the USA, and for at least 25 in the UK. During that time its sales in the USA alone increased by 17 times.1 I asked, innocently, who the BMW advertising was aimed at, expecting the standard answer of “young men,” and was astonished to learn that their target age range started at 6 years old.

It was something of a revelation! Here was a major advertiser confessing that they were targeting people who wouldn't be able to afford a BMW for 20 years and wouldn't even be allowed to drive a BMW for 10 years or more. Why on earth would they do that?

And then the answer occurred to me. If you start advertising to people when they are aged 6, by the time they are 26 they will have been exposed to 20 years of advertising. Twenty years of beautiful imagery, 20 years of technical breakthrough, 20 years of “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” Is it any wonder, then, that so many people in the world want to own a BMW?

Should this sort of thing be allowed? Probably the more important question is ‘how can you stop it?’? You could exclude car advertising from children's programs on TV, but it's well known that children watch adult programs, and even if they didn’t, they would see it on billboards by the side of the road, and in ads in newspapers and magazines left lying around. Should we ban advertising for cars altogether? Of course not: cars may damage the environment but they probably do us less harm than sweets, fast food, and fizzy drinks. If we banned car ads it would be a short step to banning advertising altogether. And if that happened, not only would most of our beloved media sources collapse in financial ruin, but advertisers would soon find another way to communicate with us. Remember the Marlboro clothing collection, and the slogan “Come to Marlboro Country.”

But another way of looking at subconscious seduction in advertising is to see it as a force for good. Every year governments use advertising to try to make us live better. They warn us of the danger of HIV Aids and smoking, and they warn us not to eat too much sugar, salt, and fatty food. They warn us to drive more safely and considerately. Many of these campaigns are made using the defunct traditional model of advertising. They try to persuade us to behave correctly. And, of course, we find them all too easy to counter-argue.

Suppose this sector of advertising were to employ the Subconscious Seduction model when making their ad campaigns? And suppose they did it as effectively as the commercial brand marketers do. Might it not turn out to have a positive social role, not a negative one? Might it actually be a force for good not evil?

The answer is that I have no idea. But I do know that, by writing this book, a lot more people will understand the principles of advertising that seduces the subconscious. And I hope in due course a lot more ad agencies who work for the government will start to apply these principles to their advertising. So perhaps in a few years I will be writing a sequel to this book, exposing how clever the government has been in subconsciously seducing us with their advertising?

And Finally …

I think it is important that we all recognise the power advertising has to influence our choice of brands, both consciously and subconsciously. But I don't see how we can ban it. Our society is now dependent on commerce, and many businesses depend on advertising their brands in order to stay in business. On balance it is probably better to keep it and regulate it, rather than try to get rid of it.

But does that mean we have to live with our subconsciouses being seduced? I suspect it does, because there are only two ways I know to resist subconscious seduction. One is to exclude all advertising from your world: turn off commercial television and radio channels when the ads come on; don't watch programs with products placed in them; turn up at the cinema after the ads have finished; avoid buying newspapers and magazines; don't walk down streets where there are billboards; don't look in shop windows; and above all don't surf the internet. Pretty difficult, unless you're prepared to live like a hermit.

The other is the exact opposite. Pay attention to the ads on TV and radio; look carefully at billboards, internet banner ads, and shop windows; read the ads in magazines; most of all, watch out for those products placed in TV programs and films. The more you attend, the more you'll be able to counter-argue what you see and hear, and the less it will be able to influence you. It may be tedious, it may be annoying, and it won't be fool-proof. But at least you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you've substantially reduced the likelihood of being subconsciously seduced.

1. http://www.autoblog.com/2006/08/07/bmw-drops-ultimate-driving-machine/