'Eat Popcorn, Drink Coke': The Subliminal Advertising Hoax

The Story

In 1957, an American market researcher named James Vicary made a startling announcement. According to reports at the time, as recounted by psychologist Anthony Pratkanis in the Skeptical Inquirer, Vicary had flashed the words 'Eat Popcorn' and 'Drink Coke' onto a movie screen in Fort Lee, New Jersey, for a third of a millisecond. He claimed that over six weeks, Coke sales rose 18 percent and popcorn sales almost 58 percent.

The public was alarmed. The editor Norman Cousins asked, 'If the device is successful for putting over popcorn, why not politicians or anything else?' The Federal Communications Commission ruled that using subliminal messages could result in the loss of a broadcast license, and the National Association of Broadcasters banned them. Australia and Britain banned subliminal advertising, according to Pratkanis. The idea that hidden messages could control behavior became a lasting fear.

Vicary later called his own famous study a fabrication.

The experiment, however, was never verified. Pratkanis wrote that Henry Link, president of the Psychological Corporation, challenged Vicary to a controlled test supervised by an independent firm, and sales of Coke and popcorn did not change. According to Pratkanis, Vicary said in a 1962 interview that the study had been a fabrication intended to increase customers for his business. Pratkanis wrote that the interview was with Advertising Age.

Pratkanis concluded that more than a century of research had failed to show that subliminal commands influence behavior. The 'Eat Popcorn' story still circulates as if it were proven.