It Rocks Everything.

I found those prints of a Parliament Ad.

They are very nice, lets look at them a little (click to see the large pictures):

This two ads, it is believed that they contains symbolic subliminal messages.

Such messages are transmited via visual objects (concepts - colors, text, light, the theme of the Ad). Some will total ignore those messages but some of us will respond to them.

We attach specific meanings from the context in which we find the symbol. When Sigmund Freud famously said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”, I think he meant that in some situations people simply smoke cigars; in others they use them as phallic symbols. Likewise, the objects that convey subliminal meaning in this ad will have different meanings in other contexts. You need to ask, does this specific context give it a subliminal meaning?

What subliminal message to you think this ads have?

Let’s take for example the second Ad. What is the theme? What are the color used, the symbols combined? The message?

- the message is transmited via text, image, color
- the context: magazines, billboards
- target: smokers
- message: Smoking Parliament will satisfy any subconscious death wish you may harbor.
- what the author elicits: a behavior (he is trying to determine the smokers to buy parliament)
- the message conveys with emotions

Let me quote (second ad image):

1. There is a lot of black and dark blue in the ad.
2. The characters are all men, and are wearing black bowler hats and black suits.
3. Black is a color traditionally associated with mourning and death.
4. The clothing worn by the men would not be out of place at a funeral, or to dress dead bodies for display in open coffins and eventual burial.
5. The suited men all have their backs to us.
6. They are hanging stiffly and lifelessly from numbers.
7. The planet too appears dark and lifeless, no visible clouds or lights.
8. There is red and yellow just above the planet’s horizon, colors usually seen at sunset, the traditional “death” of the day.
9. The numbers appear to be carrying the men off the planet and into the sky (i.e. in the direction most people associate with heaven).
10. The ad copy indicates that the numbers represent the tar content of different low-tar cigarettes.
11. The message seems to be quite clear, “Cigarettes will take you to heaven.”

So why would a tobacco company, that had spent decades fighting to suppress research and information about the adverse health consequences of smoking, present a message promising death to smokers?

The advertisers know that death is a very uncomfortable topic for western populations, and that we are taught from infancy to repress thoughts about it. It is also conceivable that they possess psychological research that a certain percentage of smokers have a subconscious death wish. These people would never think of committing a traditional act of suicide, but they might be subconsciously open to the promise of eventual death by smoking. This is very speculative of course, but how else to explain the clear death imagery in this ad, and the fact that most of us were unable to recognize it?

This was one in a long-running series of ads. Since advertisers don’t waste money on ads that do not generate sales, the longevity of this series attests to its effectiveness.

Source

Tech: ad, amazing, interesting, subliminal, advertise, parliament