Amazing! I actually took a class to train to watch out for things like this, so therefore noticing the signs. You have to keep in mind that everything out there is to persuade you, it truly is a world gone mad.
He clearly has a clever way of switching the envelope, and all the 'subliminal' stuff that the guys 'saw in their taxi ride' were just filmed after. Do you actually see the guys in the cab watching the Harp-sweatered children walk by? No. You see the guys in the taxi looking out of the window, followed by footage of the Harp-sweatered children. They're suggesting to *you* that this is what the executives saw, but that's a false implication. Still, amazingly well put together.
In his 1996 meta-analysis, Charles Trappey examined the existing literature on subliminal advertising and consumer choice. He found that many studies were plagued by small sample size, like the two in your example. He found that one average the correlation between subliminal advertising and choice was r = 0.0585. To show even weak correlation the r value would have to be over 0.3. This is not to say that subliminal advertising can not have an effect on people, just that if it does, that effect would be about equally strong in the opposite direction. In general, I won't recommend taking videos that you see on RU-vid as fact.
I work in advertising. When you brainstorm about new concepts, you're pulling ideas from every direction, including old concepts, recycled ideas, rejected campaigns, movies you've seen, etc, etc. There's no way he'd be able to influence their ideas with such precision just by driving by a couple signs that they see for a split second. Subliminal messaging is bogus. He used another trick and re-edited that intro after.
wow! this is amazing...we are constantly bombarded by so many advertisements and messages all day long we don't even realize the effect they have on us!!
it has much validity.. this study is famous. the camera is showing us the key aspects that made the study work and the deliberate objects and people that were strategically placed for the cab journey. its extremely clever and well thought out.
If this skit is true - and I'm highly skeptical - these creatives should get a raise immediately, as they exemplify exactly what it takes to succeed in advertising. They managed to take subtle clues in a small window of time to create an ad that reflects the culture that surrounds them. Nothing is original, just influenced, and this includes ads. Advertisements are as much an influence on people as people are an influence on advertisements.
That's why I shut off cable 6 years ago, never watch news and try to stay away from any kind of advertising. Feeling a lot better about myself and the world around me;)
This to me was more of an interesting look into how the mind works, and the creative process, and a lesson to learn about checking the facts with new ideas, as opposed to anything I should worry about. Granted, millions are spent to advertise, but this shows how susceptible, even people in control of advertising are with the things we see around us, so no one is at much of a better position to avoid this than anyone else, and its just a part of being human.
Wow! This just goes to show how our external can influence our internal. This technique could be used in our lives to change our own internal emotions and thinking processes, by placing "happy" "peaceful" "loving" 'Inspired"imagery around us. Thanks for sharing
I found it very interesting once I realised this, to look back on his other tricks and notice that so many of them were done in a similar way. He offers false but believable explanations (often to do with suggestion) to distract from a very simple magic trick.
Christopher could you turn on the closed captioning options for this video? I'm hoping to use it for an online class, but it needs to be ADA compliant. :) Thanks!
I'm studying advertising, and the theory of subliminal advertising is that unconscious messages received by the brain are much more powerful than conscious messages. Having said that, most people in the advertising community do not endorse or the idea of it, or believe it exists. Which seems natural to me, if they want the advertising industry to continue thriving.
from wikipedia: Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, use mental acuity, cold reading, hot reading, principles of stage magic, and/or suggestion to present the illusion of mind reading, psychokinesis, extra-sensory perception, precognition, clairvoyance or mind control. so he's a performer. and he's performing. on TV of course.
thank you youtube for finally giving the people a medium to control for ourselves what we see and hear. i'm in advertising, so i know at least what we TRY to do...and that is to 'educate' our 'target demographic' into 'realizing' that they 'need' our product/service. when, really, nobody needs much of anything except food, sex and a good moisturizer.
great video! Darren is great, really. would it be possible to have here the titles? You know, lots of us around here are not English native speakers, so titles would make our lives (listening) easier. Thanks anyway.
Fukin genius. I bet if he could sell a little girl scout her own cookies. Make salespeople buy their own products if he wanted to XD. Even when the secrets are revealed, you still find it absolutely amazing how simple it seems, yet how brilliantly it works. I chuckle to myself in delight :3 Excellent work by Derren Brown.
I was trying to think of what verbal cues he could have possibly given them. I was shocked when it was the taxi ride that gave them the ideas, really cool.
I think the point behind most of this for me is that NOBODY is above it. You are what you eat (and see in this instance). I think the first step is understanding how vulnerable we are to it and working from there.
@maltetheg - right but the things they chose are things that related to the assignment - like, they saw vases but those weren't realted to this company. And they were also shown these things a multitude of times in different ways.
this is insane! I feel sorry for people in places like NYC who are bombarded by hundreds maybe thousands of ads a day, just when they walk the streets.
I do agree indeed, the man is brilliant. I watched some of his shows and he has some quite convincing material. Although this video does not alter your designers perspective. As a matter of fact, Derren can't know what these two designers will think of before they begin. He couldn't know what they saw.
Hello just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your post seem to be running off the screen in Internet explorer. I'm not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I thought I'd post to let you know. The layout look great though! Hope you get the issue solved soon. Thanks
This is just a standard drawing duplication used in mentalism. Most of the subliminal driving sequence were filmed after the reveal of the drawing. Notice how aside from the "London Zoo" subliminal (Derren already knew the product dealt with animals, so driving by a zoo is a convenient way to claim "subliminal" influence regardless of what is drawn) and the oddly and conveniently sped up revolving door scene, you never see the participants in the same frame as the subliminal message.
Every perception creates an experience. Even an illusion has any given impact on reality. There is an infinity of potential new realities you can choose to manifest and they are always ready when you are. And you are as you are. For example, if you fail to see that you can change your life in a new and more fullfilling pattern, it doesn't mean you are stuck to your present condition. Choose what you want to create in your life and the patterns are there for you to experience exactly that.
So with the hd technology of today and with the high speed cameras which capture 3000 frames per second it's very easy to intoduce some imges in between those 3000 frames in the movies or advertising , isn't that right ?
I've been studying advertising (subliminal and overt) and will realize I've been affected when I reach to buy a specific brand for no apparent reason. Why do I want to buy that one over another? Most people are so inculcated with advertising that people rarely change their toothpaste. When was the last time you changed brands?
wow.. you've got to love the power of suggestion, and respect the unimaginable power of the subconcious mind.. to pick up small messages like that.. and it wasnt even about where they were looking.. it was the ideas ... memory and process.. encode, store, retrieve....
@MrStillmans There's another video of Brown though where they have the same "company business" of stuffed animals. But they resorted to completely different things other than harps, wings, etc. I'm trying to find the other video of Darren Brown on RU-vid but I believe it's been deleted
The car ride wasn't designed to work on the viewer, it was designed to work on the ad agency guys. Seeing subliminal clues in person is a lot different than watching for them on a little computer screen.
@Joomstor i agree the effects wouldn't last with someone for more than a day or two, but what if you take the same route to work everyday - see the same images [over and over]; those advertisements would last in your subconscious for a very long time!
My idea is that the man with glasses was covering the trick. He exchanged the envelope at some point after 2'42", the moment after which Mr. Brown changed his posture and the way of waving his hands. The expressions and posture of mr With-Glasses shows, at my opinion, very much as well. Mr Without-Glasses was gnuinely surprised instead.
@andiejanefisher good point... I got so caught up in abstract theoretical inconsistencies that I overlooked this obvious fact: what they used in their project was only a tiny fraction of what they perceived during their cab ride and the entire day for that matter. How does one filter a whole day worth of experience? Suggested answer: one doesn't.
There are ways to persuade subconciously a potential by to purchase a product.For instance,a black and white advert with gold trimmings or gold coloured lettering. People link colours to certain things such as the black and white. Black and white could mean classic style and the gold represents wealth. People will see these colours and subconciously will presume that purchaseing the product will result in them having classic style and the wealth that goes along with it.
after i went back and watched the beginning again i saw that everything they put on paper was something that they saw on the ride there. pretty cool how that stuff works
well if you think about it, our brain is designed to behave exactly as this case. Every time we want to discuss or exemplify something we rely on out past experiences, so even if yes its amazing, is nothing out of the ordinary.
to me, this is profound. to understand this is to own the world... the power from understanding this is simply profound. i am just now opening my mind to the enormity of the assault on me by companies every time i venture into public open space. jesus.
What I want to know is how did they manage to filter out all the other visual stimuli during the taxi route to make sure they guys absorbed the details they were meant to.
