I bet you could do something similar with a high-intensity digital projector behind the screen.
Which could be interesting for, say, horror movies. Put together a frame with a high-contrast image, white on a black background. Maybe a mouthful of fangs, or Freddie Kruger's knives. Time it right, just before a moment where the skittish audience members will close or cover their eyes, and they'll instead see something nasty inside their eyelids.
I suspect that this would be classed as subliminal advertising here In Australia, which is banned by the television code of practice:
"1.8.4 use or involve any technique which attempts to convey information to the viewer by transmitting messages below or near the threshold of normal awareness."
If it was just done without a mention you are probably right, but in this case the voice from the advert instructs the users to close their eyes so draws their attention to the image so it's not subliminal.
I could be wrong though. It's probably a bit of a grey area.
What if someone secretly stuffs an object up one's butt and then instructs the person to pull it out at the end of the commercial? Probably a bit of a gray area too by the same reasoning.
(edit) For those not getting the joke - it meant to illustrate that the subsequent disclosure of something done without prior consent does not make it any more acceptable. Be it an image planted in one's head or something physical.
For some reason it reminds me of this dialog from an episode of Futurama
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games... and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree.
I'd rather have laws against TALKING, CHEWING IN MY EAR, MAKING PHONE CALLS, and SLURPING LIQUIDS in the movies.
Once, I had two folks sitting behind me, with one giving a running summary of the movie dialog to her neighbor since the friend was hard hearing. I wished I had a flashlight that I could shine in their faces.
Agreed, this is not what you sign up for when you go to the movies. They should focus on improving the experience of their customers, instead of finding new ways to screw them over.
Oh and reduce the cost of popcorn - seriously it is a joke.
For the past 80 years concession prices have been used to keep ticket prices artificially low, to increase the number of film goers, which helps the theaters stay busy, creates the "experience" (I've yet to be in a crowded theater and someone actually hold up a conversation, or answer a cell phone), and most of all allows greater profits to go to the film companies and allows bigger better quality films to be produced.
It's not a joke, it's a sound business strategy. Just like how Coca-Cola and Pepsi have two-dozen drink products each even though 78% of Coca-Cola's gallon sales come from actual "Coca-Cola".
This is similar to how I walk into the grocery store and see beef packaged at $1/lb even though I have a relative in the meat packing industry, that actually packages the meat for my local store and he says they (the meat packers) can't sell it for less than $1.50/lb without making a loss.
"Just like how Coca-Cola and Pepsi have two-dozen drink products each even though 78% of Coca-Cola's gallon sales come from actual "Coca-Cola"."
I'm just curious because I'd be shocked if 78% of Coca-Cola's sales by volume were from actual Coca-Cola. They don't have dozens of drinks, they have hundreds.
Wikipedia also quotes the 78% number, citing Coca-Cola Co's 2005 SEC filing [1]. However, a cursory read of their SEC filing reveals this: "In 2005, concentrates and syrups for beverages bearing the trademark "Coca-Cola" or including the trademark "Coke" ("Coca-Cola Trademark Beverages") accounted for approximately 55 percent of the Company's total gallon sales." [2] It's possible the 78% number the Wikipedia article is drawing from is based on a newer SEC report which isn't cited correctly.
Edit: I Looked up their 10-k from Feb 2010 and found this:
"Trademark Coca-Cola Beverages accounted for approximately 51 percent, 51 percent and 53 percent of our worldwide unit case volume for 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively." [3] So it looks like Wikipedia may have incorrect information!
I stand corrected, it sounds like the ~55% figure is "Coca-Cola" products as in Original, Diet, Diet Caffeine Free, Zero, Diet with lemon, etc. I wonder if the 78% figure is from Coca-Cola 'company' drinks, like Sprite, Fanta, etc and the remaining 22% is subsidiary sales like Vitamin Water (Energy Brands subsidiary), etc.
Next time you go into a store, look at the price of 12 packs of coke. Stores usually buy them for around $3.85-$4/12 pack now (but a 'case' is 2 12 packs), and that price doesn't change much from state to state.
You'll notice they typically go on sale below that right around the holidays. It's so they can advertise to get you in and buy other stuff.
Stores like Winco and Costco usually sell coke close to cost. They don't actually get it cheaper than any other grocery store. In fact, most grocery stores will outsell costco when it comes to 12/24 packs. The cost/profit ratio is usually more constant at these places.
I've noticed that Safeway is particularly bad at inconsistent prices (hugely varying cost/profit ratios). They're sales are decent, but everything else is super inflated to make up for it.
I almost forgot to add this. 4 2 liters is the same "case" that 2 12 packs are. So while you typically get more value out of a 2 liter, they usually have a higher markup.
You'll almost never see them go on sale below cost.
Studios take a sliding scale percentage. On some new releases, 100% of the ticket price for the first week is taken, sliding to 25% after six weeks. For a theater to make money from the actual movie, they need films like Titanic or Avatar that had extended runs, otherwise, most of the income is purely from concessions. Coke and Pepsi sell their product extremely cheaply to many theaters (and shopping malls if they can work exclusives) for the branding rather than the profit.
Yes. Though we wouldn't know whether the percentage rates would stay the same, if concessions weren't allowed. The current rates were negotiated with concessions in mind.
These people seem to be fans of the novelty of the idea, not of BMW. Burning after-images into peoples retinas isn't some back door to their loyalty, anymore than flashing single frames of "DRINK COKE" make people thirst for cola.
I blieve the idea behind this is not to push a subliminal message into the view's mind but to create a "stunt" that'll get people talking about their brand (and in a positive way).
Result I see so far from this commercial
1.) Wire has an article talking about BMW (and we're reading it)
2.) This is on HN already and will probably be on reddit/FB and other social site by tomorrow
3.) People will be talking about how innovative BMW's marketing is and associate that with their product
4.) Got me to sit here and watch the commercial with my full attention (last time I did that was checking out superbowl commercial the day after on youtube, and those cost them millions for the airtime) and want to experience the "real thing" afterward
Achieving any single one of these will make it a good marketing campaign, getting all 4 make this a GREAT marketing campaign.
In fact, BMW can't show the commercial in regular cinemas because they don't have the equipment to produce the flash. They can't reach mass audience in this way. So the end product is in fact this viral video.
which obviously doesn't mean that there's no such thing as subliminal stimuli, just this example technique is not true. here's a better one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg and most of his tricks include sending signals to one's lower thresold level, no flashing anything between frames.
There are instances in the real world where this has been attempted (The Republican tv ad campaign a few years ago that flashed the word "RATS" when talking about the Democrats for instance), but there is little to no actual credible evidence to show this works. It's all little more than marketers wetdreams.
It might be innovative in the sense of cinema advertisement (as you stated) but much of this isn't anything new. Most subliminal messaging only works if the recipient is willing to accept the idea that the advertisers want to plant; social engineering and NLP are topics many hackers on HN would find interesting. Analytical psychology is interesting too but far fewer would be into the more esoteric side of Jung's thought.
Plenty of experiments have been done on strobe flashing images and sets of images on a subject's eyes. The end result is, generally, that the psyche becomes upset and the person irritated - it's kind of like having a religious zealot push their ideas onto you; if you're set in other beliefs, the experience is only irritating (if not enraging). This is where NLP, hypnosis (the real thing, not the wave a flame in your face and make you stop smoking thing), and manipulation of a person's feelings by eliciting their key feeling words comes into play.
Best example and it's a dead obvious one, would be having a scene with Kim Kardashian in a slightly revealing getup talking to the audience of a movie theater and walking about while sipping on a big coke bottle. People that may not like coke may find Kim sexually arousing which generates social proof for the product in her hand and may loosen (but not fully convert) that consumer's dislike of the product. Case in point: I generally don't like Coca-Cola and it always make me feel crappy after drinking it (bloated, too much sugar, etc...) but I love to drink it at the theater. It just "tastes" good when I drink it at the theater because over time, through a combination of real life psychological links and the clever advertising Coke does in the theaters for its product I've grown to actually enjoy it when I'm at the theater. Now, that doesn't mean I actually purchase one when at the theater (I don't drink soda) but I am aware of the bridge created in my psyche.
[EDIT] I realize the OP's comment was actually on technological innovation and had nothing to do with what I ended up talking about. Hope my comment is at least still interesting :)
I agree. However, I would also rank "optical illusion" pretty high in the list of deciding factors I process after I watch a commercial. What else? What they say? The actors or their logo? Or, their logo burned onto my eyes.
I realize they're going for the dramatic finish and all, but they could've just turned out the lights... then people would've seen "BMW" everywhere they looked. Like BMW was following them, surrounding them, and omg they're gonna EAT ME.
OK, maybe not such a great idea. Could be good for circus clowns, though.
So, presumably "bright enough to burn the image on your retina" is lower than the threshold for permanent eye damage? If it's not a lot lower, it's scary to think that the movie-goers had no idea it was going to happen and a miscalibration of the mechanism could've caused lifelong eye problems.
"burning" is a bit of an exaggeration, I think. It's just overstimulating your retina cells, so they sort of take a rest. It doesn't take much energy - glance at a 40-watt unfrosted bulb, then close your eyes, and you'll see an afterimage.
From the video it appears they are using 2 (or more) Pro-7b 1200 units, each delivering 1200 Joules of energy per flash. That's enough to light a 40-watt bulb for a full minute, and the lighting efficiency is considerably higher.
BTW, the Pro-7b is a rather small battery-powered flash unit. The bigger mains-powered ones pack twice the energy (and have much shorter cycle times).
Your 40-watt bulb has to be fairly close in proximity in order for the light to make things more visible. And since movie screens are so big, you have to be fairly far away in order to see the whole picture.
The energy output from light follows the inverse-square law, so double the distance is 4 times less bright, and quadruple the distance is 16 times less bright.
So although the energy output is higher, it's probably not as bad as you think it is.
I never meant to imply it was bad. Looking directly at a flash bulb like that from typical movie-viewing distance is perfectly harmless. I would not want to look at one up close, however.
Yes, but that energy was also mostly masked by the "BMW" stencil and then also apparently filtered through the projection screen. The amount of light actually hitting the viewers' eyes was much much less than the actual output of the strobe units.
My understanding is that visible light is very safe because it takes a long time for damage to happen and you naturally protect yourself. Of course "burning an image" really just means causing your eye to perceive an after image.
Natural visible light, yes; even somewhat concentrated reflected sunlight will take more than a blink to harm you. Visible light in general, hell no it's not safe. For goodness' sake, be careful with your lasers. And beat the everloving crap out of anyone being casual with those damned bright green lasers, which are most emphatically not toys.
I'm not saying that this theater flashing stunt was dangerous, I doubt it was anywhere near dangerous, I'm saying the idea that all visible light is safe can get you blind.
Right yeah, absolutely. What I really meant was white light of a fairly broad spectrum, hopefully no one read my comment and thought it applied to visible spectrum laser light.
They used off-the-shelf studio flashes. There really isn't a whole lot of "calibration" nor chance for "miscalibration".
The nature of these units prevents them from outputting a bright light for more than a few milliseconds. Any catastrophic failure would have most likely resulted in the flash bulbs exploding with sparks and flying glass shielded by the projection screen. Had that happened it would have only enhanced the effect.
Those flashes work by charging a capacitor bank to 1kV, then discharging it through the flash bulb. The components are selected to maximise the current during the discharge. In other words, they are designed to output as much power as possible. Any kind of failure can only reduce the power and/or energy from the intended.
I would guess the comparison to the sun is what's really driving your concern. IIRC, the real danger of the sun is the invisible parts of the spectrum- the danger of what direct exposure to the sun's UV rays can do to your retina.
(Obviously a light bulb flash does not irradiate you with nearly as much UV as the sun)
Yeah the article is annoyed that this would never fly in the us, but honestly this is exactly one of the times where a lawsuit is appropriate - and not only against the movie theater, but bwm too.
Very interesting. Wonder if these techniques could be used in some form during presentations. Would be nice to have people have a sublime experience, even if it was for the briefest bit.
You could probably do something similar, if you stared into darkness long enough. Than your eyes get adjusted, and a not-so-bright light might suffice.
I suspect in the darkened cinema, though, you could probably get an idea of the image, and might close your eyes to see it better. Not because the dude on the ad told you to, though.
Pardon me for being a provincial Midwesterner, but is it common that an playing for a German audience would be in English? Especially one that relies on the viewers following verbal instructions?
It's pretty common to hear english on TV in Germany and Scandinavia, probably part of the reason they end up being more fluent in English then say France, where you very rarely hear English.
In Germany most movies are dubbed - nearly all American ones are. Mostly niche movies are subtitled instead.
In advertising it's different. Many advertisers think that the viewers understand English (most educated Germans do) quite OK - so it sometimes happens (more in cinema than in TV) that advertising films are shown in English for the brand to appear more cosmopolitan.
Especially the slogans are often left untranslated. Since some Germans (especially from lower educated classes) aren't as fluent in English as the advertiser assumed, this leads to rather funny missunderstandings, for example:
"Sat 1 - powered by Emotion" was understood as "Sat 1 - Kraft durch Freude" (translated back to English: "Sat 1 - Strength Through Joy")
or
"Esso - we are drivers, too" -> "Esso - wir sind zwei Fahrer" (here, "too" and "two" was confused) -> "Esso - we are two drivers"
or
"Douglas - come in and find out" -> "Douglas - komm rein, du wirst auch wieder herausfinden" -> "Douglas - come in, you will be able to find the way out of the shop then"
Wouldn't work. By the time the signals were processed by the digital camera, the photons would have long since slammed into your retina. You would have to literally beat the speed of light, because even just an instance of the light getting through would accomplish the task.
Even placing the sensor several feet in front of your face wouldn't help, the fasted that you'd be able to send your signal from the sensor to the glasses is exactly as long as it'd take the flash to reach you, but you'll still have the lag of the electronics.
Most likely they are going to eat a pizza delivered to their doorstep within the next week. Most likely they have cars in their driveway. Maybe they even have one of them new fangled hybrids that get the same mileage as compact cars from the 70's got without batteries.
Which could be interesting for, say, horror movies. Put together a frame with a high-contrast image, white on a black background. Maybe a mouthful of fangs, or Freddie Kruger's knives. Time it right, just before a moment where the skittish audience members will close or cover their eyes, and they'll instead see something nasty inside their eyelids.