Subliminal Listening
Last week, I posted about subliminal advertising and gave a
couple of examples. In the comments on
that post, Boxxy reminded me about a conversation we once had about subliminal
messages buried in music. (And no, I’m
not talking about playing “Stairway to Heaven” backwards. That’s called backmasking and it’s idiotic.) What I’m talking about is a scientific means
for using music to influence human behavior, specifically in a retail
environment. Here’s a couple of techniques
that you may not even realize you’re being subjected to.
#1 Does music make you move? Does upbeat music make you swing your hips
and snap your fingers, sometimes without you even realizing it? For most people, the answer is yes. (If the answer is no, then you need to get
out more.) You don’t play Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies when you’re
home alone and cleaning the house. You
play some upbeat rock or country, something to get your blood flowing. (I’m going to turn some on right now!)
Have you ever been to a coffee shop in the morning? (Are you tired of answering questions?) The music is usually upbeat, no matter what genre. The reason is, people naturally move faster
when music with a faster tempo is playing.
Coffee shops, in particular, need to blow through a ton of customers in the
mornings to make some money! This
technique is very helpful. If you go
back to the same shop in the afternoon, you’ll hear a much more relaxing playlist. Why?
So that you’ll sit around for a while.
Kick back. Maybe, oh, I dunno, buy something else! Coffee joints aren’t exactly busy in the
afternoon, so any tactic to rake in more of your dollars is welcome. I could go into many more examples, but I
have another technique to get into.
#2 This one is a little creepy. You know that guy at the end of car
commercials who talks really, really, really
fast? So fast you can barely understand
what he’s saying? (Is he even
human? Yes.) The advertisers typically record the person
talking at a normal speed and then just speed it up with their
techno-super-powers. You can hardly make out every word, but
your ears and your brain: they soak up every last bit. Yep.
Your brain is smarter than you.
(I know what you’re thinking: huh? But don’t say huh. That just proves my
point if you do.) Your ears can pick up
sounds which you’re not always aware of and your brain can interpret them, no
problem.
A guy named Hal C Becker realized this decades ago. He made
something called the “black box.” It plays
messages at slower or faster speeds which your ears hear, but you don’t really recognize. At the same time, regular music is playing in
a department store, for example. You
hear music you know and love, but underneath, your ears and brain are hearing
messages like, “I can afford this” or “I’ll get caught if I steal” and “Someone
is watching so I shouldn’t shoplift.”
First of all, it’s scary. But
what’s scarier? It works. Sales increase a little bit when a store’s
music is laced with positive messages, but the kicker is the anti-theft
deterrent powers. Some stores report
that theft goes down as much as 30-40 percent
when looping subliminal anti-theft messages with their music. Can you believe that!? My question is: what else are we being
unknowingly coaxed into doing or not doing?
Listen closely next time you’re buying something
somewhere. The music is telling you
something . . . and something else, too.
