Duke is Doing Something Right

By: Arment Dietrich | March 27, 2008 |

Blog written Molli Megasko

Despite the fact that Duke bombed the first round of March Madness and really messed up my brackets, at least their education system keeps on trucking.

Duke and the University of Waterloo conducted a study that actually suggests that subliminal advertising is more effective than regular advertising. I find this so fascinating, yet violating at the same time.

Students were told they were testing for visual acuity but in actuality they were being tested on their actions after seeing a popular brand logo for 30 milliseconds. The brands used in the study were Apple, IBM, Disney, and the E! Channel. Here are the findings:

After completing the test, the students were given a second task to think of all the possible ways they could use a brick. The people who had seen the Apple logo came up with more ways of using the brick, and were judged to have come up with the more creative uses, according to the researchers.

The researchers also tried the test with logos from The Disney Channel and E!, and found that people who were exposed to the Disney logo “subsequently behaved much more honestly than those who saw the E! Channel logos.”

So what does this mean? “Instead of spending the majority of their money on traditional print and television advertising, companies with established brand associations such as Apple may want to give serious consideration to shifting more marketing resources to product placement opportunities and other forms of outreach that emphasize brief brand exposures,” said Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor at Duke.

Briefly gaze above. Feeling creative yet?

At least with regular commercials and print ads it’s honest and I know what they want. It’s weird to think that we could be targeted without even realizing it; it could already be happening. That subconsciously I am making decisions that somebody else wants me to. I guess they finally figured out the power women have over men. What are they going to take away from us next?