Subliminal Messages Part Three

Factor Three: Know the Priming Factor Before Attempting to Influence
FASCINATING: Priming SADNESS enhanced the persuasiveness of an ad for a CD with Mood Restoring music when people expected to interact with someone.

A neutral stimulus (an oval) showed no change in whether people would buy the CD or not.

Now, the only way you come up with these kind of results is by understanding the process of nonconscious "thought," and fortunately, essentially, no one does.

Let's do something simple for using subliminals in a supraliminal environment. (Fancy way of saying the subliminal image is actually visible in consciousness and possibly even observed but not likely to be DEEMED as important in influencing behavior.)

Factor Four: Don't Dilute the Message

If there is too much noise in your office...too many competing messages...then no environmental prime is going to be that big of an influence (if at all) on someone's behavior or decision making.

Imagine you sell car insurance and people come to your office to consider buying. Here are two exaggerated extremes. Which do you think is going to CAUSE more people to purchase car insurance.
Factor Five: Wire into the Non-conscious Mind
A) A photograph of a family, smiling in their car as they drive down the road. Everyone happy and making lots of eye contact, enjoying the ride.
B) A photograph of a car mangled with people standing by the scene crying, tearful, in agony.

The answer is B.

The horror of B will FAR outsell that of the pain of A. Remember the person is in the office to consider buying insurance. Seeing a happy family is nice. It's pleasant. It's comforting and causes good feelings inside. But the prime of the accident and what that "means" to the nonconscious mind of the fence sitting individual is overwhelming and CAUSES a purchase decision.

Think about homeowner's insurance. Hurricane coverage doesn't come with homeowner's insurance. It's a separate policy. But the way you SELL homeowners insurance is to show the remnants of a hurricane and all the surroundings THEN show the agent giving a check to the family. Nothing sells like that picture because it wires into the drivers and motivators of who we are as people.

Factor Six: Placement Matters

The location of the photo of the car accident with mourners matters as well. If it's on the desk...that's manipulative and you just killed the sale. People do not OVERTLY wish to be manipulated. (The antithesis is an entirely different article.) If it's on the side wall and visible but not standing out when the people walk in, then it does it's job.

(Technically that would be a supraliminal "image" right? Not subliminal....)