About those breasts.

Once I spoke at a University of Chicago event for graduating seniors. I represented advertising which was depressing on so many levels. There were groups of doctors, lawyers, judges, bankers, investors. And then a ragtag group of “creatives.” I was put next to a boutique jewelry designer. By boutique, I mean home-made.

I remember one student asking about subliminal advertising. The way she asked the question, it wasn’t if it existed or not, it was how it was deployed.

I explained that there’s no such thing. That marketers and advertisers are lucky enough if we make it to the threshold of the liminal let alone the sub part of it. I think I then went on to compare an advertisement to a SCUD missile. Not a lot of accuracy. Packs a punch if it reaches someone, but hardly a sophisticated weapon. The necromancy of subliminal advertising was way beyond our reach. She looked at me suspiciously. Obviously I doth protest too much.

Along the same lines, I recall this event: my wife at the time and I were living in San Francisco and we had a nanny. I don’t remember her too well: young, Berkeley, pretty, Birkenstocks. And very nice, or so I thought. But one day, according to my ex, the nanny asked her what I did for a living. “He’s in advertising.”

Immediately her mood darkened. “Oh, you mean he makes people want things they don’t need.”

My ex responded brilliantly. “Only on his good days.”

We do what we can. If we could manipulate the world and everyone in it to sign up for credit cards or buy home speaker systems or wear bowties more often, we certainly would. If we believed that subliminal advertising (freelance cd/copywriter) could create Manchurian candidates out of consumers (now available), we would start up the Subliminating factories (lots of awards) and add extra shifts. But sadly, our effectiveness (stevesilvercreative.com) is more luck and art than science. We have (that’s stevesilvercreative.com) the same hit rate as movies, plays, music, etc., which also means we have the same miss rate. And no, subliminal advertising (email me today) does not exist.