Re: Marketing: "The Tough Stuff"

Arkie Koehl (arkie_at_sirius.com)
Wed, 28 Aug 1996 08:50:39 -0800

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Archive Home Page
• Search
• Next message: Madvulcan: "Web Statistics"
• Previous message: Mark J. Welch: "Re: banner software"
• Maybe in reply to: Tony Glassman: "Marketing: "The Tough Stuff""

Donna writes:

>> Speaking of subliminal advertising on the internet.....is it legal, or not?
>>
>I don't know if it's legal or not, but i personally feel it's dishonest and
>deceptive.
>
>Why not sell your product/service on the basis of what it can do for
>people, rather than trying to worm your way into their subconscious? And if
>you can't figure out good reasons for people to buy what you're selling,
>maybe you shouldn't be selling it!!

I believe subliminal advertising is legal. I also believe it's nonexistent,
outside of the fevered imaginations of conspiracy theorists and possibly a
university behavioral lab or two.

That being said, it's fun to debate the ethics of something which doesn't
exist, so here goes :-)

"Worming your way into [the consumer's, voter's, donor's] subconscious" is
a millenia-old political and commercial objective. Subliminal advertising,
if there were such a thing, would be just one of many ways of achieving
that objective. Sex, for example, is another. Calvin Klein commercials do
an excellent job of worming the brand name into my subconscious (as well as
some of my other bodily and psychic venues).

If an agency were to insist that advertising, online or otherwise, be
limited to rational appeals, it would do its clients a disservice; and they
would quickly "sublimate" their way to another agency :-)

Arkie Koehl
Marketing/Copywriting
San Francisco
arkie_at_sirius.com

• Archive Home Page
• Search
• Next message: Madvulcan: "Web Statistics"
• Previous message: Mark J. Welch: "Re: banner software"
• Maybe in reply to: Tony Glassman: "Marketing: "The Tough Stuff""

With an archive of more than 14,000 postings, since 1996 the Online Advertising Discussion List has been the Internet's leading forum focused on professional discussion of online advertising and online media buying and selling strategies, results, studies, tools, and media coverage. If you wish to join the discussion list, please use this link to sign up on the home page of the Online Advertising Discussion List.