Effects of Subliminal Communications in Business (Essay Sample)

Effects of Subliminal Communications in Business
Cleon Smith
Writers Online University




Throughout mass media there are illegal messages that still appear that are embedded in another message, such messages are famously called subliminal communication in business environment. Albeit illegal, such incidences can never be tried nor taken to a court of law. The likelihood of noticing such messages is almost zero. However; they are triggered by the subconscience and send neural messages to your brain that you are oblivious to, thus making it hard to notice when you are seeing these communications on billboards, screens or print media. Manipulation of one`s emotions is a way that subliminal communication in business has found its way into duping people into spending on what they did not intend to spend on. For instance, when some donations are required to be made to the poor, sick or starving population, disturbing images of emaciated, fragile and sad population would flash on your screens and print media. The commercial ensures to remind you that through your donation, you can save a life, but if you do not, you are letting a life die. It is usually effective but unethical since it is purposefully tampering with one`s emotions.
The concept of subliminal advertising is based on a “threshold”. Sutherland (1993),”this is thought to be a fixed point below which awareness does not extend”, (p.30). On television advertisement, the advertisers, considering that less than one percent of the population possesses syncretistic vision, exploit visual and audio perceptions. This is the ability to make sense of an audio-visual commercial instantaneously. Thus to achieve subliminal communication, an advertiser flashes a word on a television screen for 50 milliseconds ensuring consciousness is not achieved by the viewer for the first time triggering interest. If the time of the exposure is increased, the word crosses the threshold, a person becomes consciously aware of the word, and i...