[developer1]

Queue the pundits who will claim that the reason advertising is supposedly effective is that you cannot physically ignore the brain washing. They always pop up to claim that no matter how strongly you believe that advertising's manipulation does not affect you, it does. That your subconscious sucks it all in, regardless of the effort your conscious mind makes to filter it out.

I go out of my way to stop purchasing products whose advertisements I see too often, or who use emotional advertising that has nothing to do with their product. One example: I stopped buying Dove products the very first time I saw one of their "real beauty" campaign ads. Bloody hell, you're only selling soap. What on Earth makes advertising people think that stroking the egos of people with body image issues would work? Perhaps it works on a lot of people, but I sure as hell am not one of them.

[logfromblammo]

I think that may actually be more advertising for the advertising industry. Let's see the results of the comparison between the control group and the experimental group.

I don't think any such data exists, particularly among those who have consciously decided to ignore the ads.

  Company: Why should we pay you if people are ignoring the ads?
  Admen: Because they work *better* if you aren't paying attention.
  Company: Really?
  Admen: Absolutely!
  Company: We're not sure about that...
  Admen: Ladies and gentlemen, mister Kevin Nealon.
  Mr. Subliminal: I get that you have concerns
      (keep paying us)
      about the effectiveness of subliminal advertising,
      (it really works)
      but you should take a look at this chart
      (totally legit)
      showing what appears to be ad budget on the x axis
      (sex axis)
      and product sales on the y axis
      (why not buy more ads?).
      As you can see,
      (really just a model's ass)
      more ads mean more sales.  So in conclusion,
      (buy more ads)
      your company should definitely buy more ads from us.
  Company: We'd like to increase our advertising budget.