HOLLYWOOD'S (NOT SO) HIDDEN PERSUADERS
Murray, Edmund P.
Hollywood sAHidden Persuaders by EDMUND P. MURRAY Before the screen credits are shown in the recent Frank Capra film, A Hole in the Head, the audience is treated to two technicolor commercials....
...But no matter what prompted the plethora of plugs in the Sinatra movie, the barrage adds up to a pain in the neck for movie goers...
...During the showing of the film the words "Coca-Cola" were flashed on the screen at five-second intervals for one three-thousandths of a second...
...he says, 'Sit down and let's talk about it...
...The use of advertising signs is most flagrant in the many scenes played around the registration desk of the hotel...
...Possibly the closest approach to the truly subliminal comes in the use of a soft drink vending machine on the porch of the hotel owned by the film's leading character...
...He sits near her...
...The owner testified that the "free" mentions his store received as a result of the employe's appearance were worth every cent of the $10,000 he paid for them...
...They appeal not just to the subconscious, as subliminal advertisements do, but also to the periphery of conscious attention...
...Despite all this competition, the Fountainebleu easily garners top honors as the most heavily advertised enterprise...
...One is for the Fountainebleu Hotel...
...After a moment of desultory dialogue, Sinatra picks up the box and carefully holds it so the audience gets a good view...
...The New York Times recently reported that Strangers When We Met, a film now being produced, will plug a houseful of items on a tie-in basis with the various manufacturers...
...The more subtle ones, such as the "Enjoy a Pepsi-Cola" sign, raise the same questions of ethics as were stirred up over subliminal advertising...
...the other, for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company...
...He said an experiment at a theater in New Jersey indicated popcorn sales went up 57.5 per cent and Coca-Cola sales increased 18.1 per cent when subliminal ads for these products were flashed on the screen...
...During the recent Congressional investigation of television quiz shows, a department store owner disclosed he had paid $10,000 to get an employe on one of the programs as a contestant...
...There is a full-length commercial for Exquisite Form bras in Happy Anniversary, and the manufacturer of the bra is, in turn, plugging the picture in his advertising copy...
...His testimony gives some measure of the potential value of the avalanche of advertising that engulfs A Hole in the Head...
...The recent Edge of Eternity is devoted in large measure to showcasing several vehicles manufactured by Ford Motor Company...
...James M. Vicary, whose market research firm set up the demonstration, explained that while the repeated Coca-Cola plugs could not be grasped by the conscious mind, they did have an effect on the subconscious through a process identified as "subliminal perception...
...When the TV commercial comes on, the viewer, however committed he is to seeing the play, remains a free agent...
...If I go by jitney bus...
...As Vicary has said of subliminal advertising, "The magic is that we can put in a very mild form of advertising at the very peak of attention, the big moments of a movie or television play...
...But A Hole in the Head, which last summer was the third most heavily attended film throughout the country, treats audiences to something new: advertising that might be called "less than subliminal" and still be considered more than questionable...
...These appeals to our "peripheral perception" are received under the spell created by a reasonably entertaining and lavishly mounted motion picture...
...Always in view in these scenes are three signs touting various American Express services and one each for Eastern Airlines, Wilmark detective service, Avis car rental, Beneficial Finance Company, Bufferin, and an assortment of Miami Beach tours...
...The buildup, which has no connection with either the major point or the minor poignancy of the scene, is so cunningly contrived that it comes as something of a letdown that there is no dialogue about the virility building powers of raisins...
...Suddenly a porpoise leaps out of the water with breathtaking propulsion and takes a fish from the hand of a man standing at the edge of a high diving board...
...At present, however, the subliminal approach appears to have no market among advertisers...
...Hollywood may find itself confronted by similar problems because of the torrent of less than subliminal advertising let loose through A Hole m the Head...
...The stars of the picture are shown at the edge of a luxurious pool...
...A sign advertising a brand name whisky is prominent in several scenes in Anatomy of a Murder...
...Tie-ins of this type, in which a manufacturer gives advertising to a film in which one of his products is displayed, are becoming common...
...Movie viewers see the sign for only a split second...
...The hotel is mentioned or shown at least two dozen times...
...Sharp-eyed movie goers will see that it is a box of Sun Maid raisins...
...Several of the commercials are verbal, most are visual, and many are both...
...While the more blatant plugs in A Hole in the Head might arouse resentment and resistance, the only slightly less than subliminal commercials would seem quite effective...
...A New Orleans firm has done some business using subliminal techniques to heighten the fright content of horror movies...
...The overt commercials are an imposition and a distraction...
...The initial plug is subtle...
...Two years ago the possibilities of using such flash impressions as an advertising technique touched off a brief but apparently effective torrent of criticism...
...He can leave the room, or turn the set down, or watch the commercial...
...By all accounts the advertising industry has answered the ethical questions raised in subliminal advertising by turning thumbs down on the idea...
...To add injury to the insult he must, unlike the television viewer, pay an admission price for the privilege of joining a captive audience for commercials...
...And, if favorable attitudes toward a product can be so insinuated, why not political indoctrination or unfavorable attitudes toward a competitor's products...
...She is seated on the bed...
...Still holding the box in the manner of a practiced television pitchman, Sinatra takes a raisin for himself and gives one to his comely companion...
...While it might be naive to assume that plugs are never sold, it would be unfair to advertisers and media which accept the practice to assume that every such instance results from a payoff...
...But, as the motivational researchers have established, visual impressions flashed on a screen for even tinier slivers of a second have a decided effect...
...The viewer of A Hole in the Head has no such choice...
...Maurice Segal, publicity coordinator for United Artists, contends that conventions of characterization, authenticity, and courtesy extended to an establishment that permits a film to be shot partly on its premises justify the plugs which appear in A Hole in the Head...
...If he wants to see the film, he has no protection against being conditioned favorably toward various commercial products without his consent and even without his knowledge...
...They prove to be only the opening shots in a concerted barrage of advertising...
...A comparison of the advertising in A Hole in the Head with that of a television drama illuminates the problem...
...Though the extent to which A Hole in the Head is turned over to advertising is exceptional, it is by no means an isolated phenomenon...
...In a somewhat different manner, machines in the hotel lobby give Wrigley gum and various cigarette brands repeated exposure...
...The outburst followed a showing before press representatives of a film called Secrets of the Reef...
...On the sturdy tower which supports the diving board the name of the Fountainebleu Hotel is inscribed in giant gold letters...
...While such concern with commercials is routine in television, it represents something of a departure in a major Hollywood movie...
...There are several reasons for allowing what the trade calls a "cuffo commercial...
...In one scene, Frank Sinatra, top star and co-producer of the film, enters the hotel room of Carolyn Jones, who is cast as his mistress...
...And they do so under highly favorable conditions...
...Between them is a small cardboard box...
...Less than subliminal advertising partakes of the same magic and perhaps achieves greater potency...
...The context often conveys the explicit, or at least the implicit, endorsement of the popular and attractive people who star in the film...
...Typical of the verbal commercials is the scene in which Sinatra explains the importance of the Cadillac as a status symbol: "If I jump in my Cadillac and drive down to see him...
...The demonstration cued expressions of both grave misgivings about the dangers of subliminal devices as tools for thought control and serious doubt about their actual effectiveness as an advertising technique...
...In a similar vein, Adolphe Wen-land, a Hollywood promotion agent, recently told an interviewer that payoffs to television writers who introduce advertising plugs into their scripts range from a case of liquor to $500...
...he says, 'Scram.' " Other frequent mentions and showings of Cadillacs are reinforced by a shot of a neon sign at a Cadillac agency, flashing on and off in screaming blue...
...The first time it is shown, viewers can see the message, "Enjoy a Pepsi-Cola," imprinted in pale letters on the side of the machine...
...Even the myopic will have their subconscious awareness jogged by the distinctive red box and yellow circle...
...During the film's two-hour running time, some twenty-five firms and products are praised, mentioned, or shown...
...In later scenes in which the machine is shown from the same angle, the Pepsi-Cola legend is not visible, but presumably it is there strongly enough to be making its subliminal impression...
...The more effective reflect the soft sell, and even the most blatant are woven into the script with great care...
...A wide variety of other firms and products are plugged, including two airlines, a lighter fluid, several women's apparel and accessory firms, a taxi company, and a dog track in Miami, plus nearly a dozen Miami Beach hotels, motels, night clubs, and cafeterias...
...Vicary blames the "irrational press reaction" for the failure of subliminal advertising to get off the ground...
Vol. 24 • May 1960 • No. 5
