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Liminal Advertising

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This is a radical idea, I know. Some of you parents may want to ask your children to leave the room before reading further.

The idea of liminal advertising is this: A business that offers a product or service will pay for the use of billboard, a page in a magazine or other periodical, or 30 or 60 seconds of TV or radio air time. The business uses this space or air time to state, in clear language, what the product or service is, how the purchase can benefit from it and/or how the product or service is superior to offerings of competitors, and how much the product or service will actually cost the purchaser.

I'm tempted to infer that this kind of advertising is banned by the FCC or FTC. However, it seems unfair to tie the hands of legitmate business organizations by requiring them to advertise their offerings using twaddle, vapid music, or intimations that use of the offered product or service leads to sexual fulfillment. Perhaps the rules could be changed to allow businesses to use liminal advertising.

cranford, Jun 03 2005

Crazy People http://www.imdb.com...0099316/plotsummary
Certainly not an original idea. [Worldgineer, Jun 03 2005]

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       While it Would Be Nice, the sad truth is that advertising in its current form developed from the straightforward just-the-facts style of the '50s for a reason.   

       The majority of people (Americans at least) just don't get interested enough in a product without the ol' razzle-dazzle.   

       It's the same theory as email marketing. It may be annoying, but the real problem is that it works.
justaguy, Jun 03 2005
  

       Yes, those "Americans". They are dumb.
crater, Jun 03 2005
  

       I can only speak to that with which I have had personal experience. I never said Americans are dumb.
justaguy, Jun 03 2005
  

       Vapid. Cool word about uncool stuff. Chewy.
daseva, Jun 03 2005
  

       Thanks, [Worldgineer], for the reference to the movie "Crazy People." I saw that movie too, and it *sort of* depicts what I'm talking about. There was a lot of talk in the movie calling the ads that Dudley Moore and his new friends created "honest." There was one interesting scene where the "sane" execs from his ad agency were struggling to come up with their own "honest" ad for shampoo.   

       However, a lot of the ads in that movie WEREN'T honest. Some were: Metamucil makes it so you can go to the toilet, Volvos are boxy but safe, Ban is for people who prefer not to stink. But many of the ads (especially for cars) worked by suggesting that buying the product a man could get sexual considerations he might not otherwise expect. These ads aren't honest, it's just that they state in plain language what the ads that had come before smirkingly implied. (And I wanted to yell at the screen that you sell shampoo to women the way you sell cars to men: claim that it's a ticket to sexual bliss.)   

       No, what I'm suggesting is that ads consist of simply stated, honest assertions of products' benefits and costs.
cranford, Jun 03 2005
  

       WIBNI, Let's All, Advocacy. [m-f-d].
Blumster, Jun 03 2005
  

       This would never work. If avertising people started telling the truth the whole thing would fall apart. You don't see signs by a mountain stream that say "fresh sparkling water!" do you?
JesusHChrist, Jun 03 2005
  

       Is there supraliminal or extraliminal advertising?
half, Jun 03 2005
  


 

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