Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Whatever tools you're considering using, first measure the ROI of your efforts. If your marketing strategy is already well thought out, and you're making incremental changes to improving business, try it out. But first, make sure that the obvious things (call to action, value proposition, etc.) are all working effectively for you. However, subliminal messages are hard to measure, take time to evaluate, and generally don't produce as strong results as improving your "basic" marketing messages and branding.

Is this a student assignment?

There are a wide range of potential possibilities contained within the rather loose parameters stated: Impact/results, perceived ethical issues and profitability would all depend completely upon the specific category, brand and creative execution - and the nature and degree of the subliminal messaging contained therein.

I'm afraid that any attempts to make a definitive statement about the aforementioned points, or to quantify a benchmark would be relatively meaningless out of the context of exactly what you're trying to do, so testing is likely your best option for assessing it's potential risks and rewards (perhaps a champion/challenger with a non-subliminal ad).

Good luck!

As a consumer, if you could opt-in to subliminal advertising on, say, your home television, would you do it?

Why/why not?

(This will give you some indication of whether it's ethical or not. It would probably be more acceptable if the target audience opts-in than if you just sneak it in on them.)