Subliminal advertising as a tool of persuasion in marketing communication

For many years, subliminal advertising has aroused a lot of controversy in the community of researchers dealing with this phenomenon. As it turned out that the results of the first study on the operation of subliminal advertising were probably falsified, there were doubts as to whether this form of advertising could be effective at all. A break through for this type of opinion was research on subliminal priming, which showed that the presentation of a subliminal stimulus can have an impact on the cognitive and affective system of a human. Over the past 20 years, an increase in interest in the effects of subliminal persuasion has been observed, which is reflected in the growing number of publications devoted to research on this phenomenon. It turns out that the effects of exposure to subliminal stimuli can be observed not only in relations to consumer behavior, but thanks to the methods used in research on the functioning of the brain, the action of such stimuli is also recorded at the level of changes in brain wave activity. The article reviews research on the effects of subliminal stimuli, the results of which can be used in marketing communication.

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