Amazing! I actually took a class to train to watch out for things like this, so therefore noticing the signs. You have to keep in mind that everything out there is to persuade you, it truly is a world gone mad.

In his 1996 meta-analysis, Charles Trappey examined the existing literature on subliminal advertising and consumer choice. He found that many studies were plagued by small sample size, like the two in your example. He found that one average the correlation between subliminal advertising and choice was r = 0.0585. To show even weak correlation the r value would have to be over 0.3. This is not to say that subliminal advertising can not have an effect on people, just that if it does, that effect would be about equally strong in the opposite direction. In general, I won't recommend taking videos that you see on KZfaq as fact.

He clearly has a clever way of switching the envelope, and all the 'subliminal' stuff that the guys 'saw in their taxi ride' were just filmed after. Do you actually see the guys in the cab watching the Harp-sweatered children walk by? No. You see the guys in the taxi looking out of the window, followed by footage of the Harp-sweatered children. They're suggesting to *you* that this is what the executives saw, but that's a false implication. Still, amazingly well put together.

reminded me of that scene in Focus where the chinese man choose the number 55 :P

That is brilliant. Watching it again I can see all of the prompts in the car journey. Amazing.

That's why I shut off cable 6 years ago, never watch news and try to stay away from any kind of advertising. Feeling a lot better about myself and the world around me;)

Sweet! Now I wonder how we can apply this in classrooms to help kids behave and want to learn.

This to me was more of an interesting look into how the mind works, and the creative process, and a lesson to learn about checking the facts with new ideas, as opposed to anything I should worry about. Granted, millions are spent to advertise, but this shows how susceptible, even people in control of advertising are with the things we see around us, so no one is at much of a better position to avoid this than anyone else, and its just a part of being human.

Here because of the "Stuff you should know " podcast.

I work in advertising. When you brainstorm about new concepts, you're pulling ideas from every direction, including old concepts, recycled ideas, rejected campaigns, movies you've seen, etc, etc. There's no way he'd be able to influence their ideas with such precision just by driving by a couple signs that they see for a split second. Subliminal messaging is bogus. He used another trick and re-edited that intro after.

This is just a standard drawing duplication used in mentalism. Most of the subliminal driving sequence were filmed after the reveal of the drawing. Notice how aside from the "London Zoo" subliminal (Derren already knew the product dealt with animals, so driving by a zoo is a convenient way to claim "subliminal" influence regardless of what is drawn) and the oddly and conveniently sped up revolving door scene, you never see the participants in the same frame as the subliminal message.

"People don't have ideas. Ideas have people" - Sigmund Freud

If this skit is true - and I'm highly skeptical - these creatives should get a raise immediately, as they exemplify exactly what it takes to succeed in advertising. They managed to take subtle clues in a small window of time to create an ad that reflects the culture that surrounds them. Nothing is original, just influenced, and this includes ads. Advertisements are as much an influence on people as people are an influence on advertisements.

"a passion of mine, since I was a toddler"... lol

I found it very interesting once I realised this, to look back on his other tricks and notice that so many of them were done in a similar way. He offers false but believable explanations (often to do with suggestion) to distract from a very simple magic trick.

from wikipedia: Mentalism is a performing art in which its practitioners, known as mentalists, use mental acuity, cold reading, hot reading, principles of stage magic, and/or suggestion to present the illusion of mind reading, psychokinesis, extra-sensory perception, precognition, clairvoyance or mind control. so he's a performer. and he's performing. on TV of course.

fake

It's not subiminal, it's just a trick.

it has much validity.. this study is famous. the camera is showing us the key aspects that made the study work and the deliberate objects and people that were strategically placed for the cab journey. its extremely clever and well thought out.

This is so amazing! Every few months I watch it again just because I can't believe it; factually I do believe it...

This is fake bro.

I'm studying advertising, and the theory of subliminal advertising is that unconscious messages received by the brain are much more powerful than conscious messages. Having said that, most people in the advertising community do not endorse or the idea of it, or believe it exists. Which seems natural to me, if they want the advertising industry to continue thriving.

Joe's Taxidermy: You snuff em, we stuff em!

Every perception creates an experience. Even an illusion has any given impact on reality. There is an infinity of potential new realities you can choose to manifest and they are always ready when you are. And you are as you are. For example, if you fail to see that you can change your life in a new and more fullfilling pattern, it doesn't mean you are stuck to your present condition. Choose what you want to create in your life and the patterns are there for you to experience exactly that.

we did this in Experimental Psychology last week and i'm still in amazement of how our subconscious works without us even being aware!

it's only the visual that emphasized here.. and if combined with audio one, how great the influence can become

His show's going to play in the U.S. this summer on the Sci-Fi Channel. July 26th - I'm looking forward to it! Crazy stuff.

I'm impressed. The mechanism by which these tricks work is fairly simple, but the execution is everything. This was some good work.

I think the point behind most of this for me is that NOBODY is above it. You are what you eat (and see in this instance). I think the first step is understanding how vulnerable we are to it and working from there.

There are ways to persuade subconciously a potential by to purchase a product.For instance,a black and white advert with gold trimmings or gold coloured lettering. People link colours to certain things such as the black and white. Black and white could mean classic style and the gold represents wealth. People will see these colours and subconciously will presume that purchaseing the product will result in them having classic style and the wealth that goes along with it.

I think you made a very good argument here. I'm not so sure I can counter, because I can not truly confirm the validity of the experiment.

It is true. I was showed this video in my Psychology class today. It is an example or "priming" people to think a certain way or to do certain things.

well if you think about it, our brain is designed to behave exactly as this case. Every time we want to discuss or exemplify something we rely on out past experiences, so even if yes its amazing, is nothing out of the ordinary.

thank you youtube for finally giving the people a medium to control for ourselves what we see and hear. i'm in advertising, so i know at least what we TRY to do...and that is to 'educate' our 'target demographic' into 'realizing' that they 'need' our product/service. when, really, nobody needs much of anything except food, sex and a good moisturizer.

@maltetheg - right but the things they chose are things that related to the assignment - like, they saw vases but those weren't realted to this company. And they were also shown these things a multitude of times in different ways.

I do agree indeed, the man is brilliant. I watched some of his shows and he has some quite convincing material. Although this video does not alter your designers perspective. As a matter of fact, Derren can't know what these two designers will think of before they begin. He couldn't know what they saw.

wow! this is amazing...we are constantly bombarded by so many advertisements and messages all day long we don't even realize the effect they have on us!!

@MacDillaz I didn't have that desire until you planted the suggestion in my MIND! LOL

@Joomstor i agree the effects wouldn't last with someone for more than a day or two, but what if you take the same route to work everyday - see the same images [over and over]; those advertisements would last in your subconscious for a very long time!

@over9000deadkoreans That was not very clear Recap: there's vacuum noise->telephone rings->I hear the ringing->I turn vacuum off to check if it actually rang; My desire to take action - the action of switching off the vacuum, if I'm not mistaking - was prompted by the ringing of the phone. Well congrats! You have discovered the stimulus-response relation, or one might say, even determinism, but not classical conditioning though. Also, good luck calculating the threshold of conscious perception!

it doesn't even need a relaxed mind. Ericksonian hypnosis which is the foundation for NLP claims that a greater focus is what is required no matter if it's induced by lowering the avarage focus, inducing a confused state with then a presented solution with a hidden suggestion in it, or even raising the adrenalin level and presenting an object of high focus. If they're hostile and tense - utilize it linguistically and develope repour :)

this is insane! I feel sorry for people in places like NYC who are bombarded by hundreds maybe thousands of ads a day, just when they walk the streets.

@reghin79 other possibility, repetition The harp was shown twice (once on a bear) a bear was shown twice Zoo gates were shown twice The angel wings were shown three times etc.

to me, this is profound. to understand this is to own the world... the power from understanding this is simply profound. i am just now opening my mind to the enormity of the assault on me by companies every time i venture into public open space. jesus.

@andiejanefisher good point... I got so caught up in abstract theoretical inconsistencies that I overlooked this obvious fact: what they used in their project was only a tiny fraction of what they perceived during their cab ride and the entire day for that matter. How does one filter a whole day worth of experience? Suggested answer: one doesn't.

I saw the journey at the beggining, and saw the creature wings twice, and i thought "That has got to do with something",. LOL

@andiejanefisher When you look at the watch when there's a time like 11:11, 6:6:6 you start to focus and remember all these numbers and forget "normal" time indications. If you see one dinosaur, then another, you are cued to pay attention to them.

Fukin genius. I bet if he could sell a little girl scout her own cookies. Make salespeople buy their own products if he wanted to XD. Even when the secrets are revealed, you still find it absolutely amazing how simple it seems, yet how brilliantly it works. I chuckle to myself in delight :3 Excellent work by Derren Brown.

His show's really premiering tomorrow? That's really exciting! I cant wait to see it

It shows the opposite and that they come from random things. If you see things on the way home that wasn't part of someone's design to get you to think a certain way, yet it still plants an idea in your head, then it was still from random things you didn't know about.

So cool. Makes me wonder if all creativity is the result of pulling images and words out of our subconscious.

I wonder, how did they make sure the designers were getting just the right stimuli and not any others they could get during the car trip? For example, why did they picked the lyra and not any other object in that store?

wow.. you've got to love the power of suggestion, and respect the unimaginable power of the subconcious mind.. to pick up small messages like that.. and it wasnt even about where they were looking.. it was the ideas ... memory and process.. encode, store, retrieve....

at 5:18 "if you knew the amount of effort we've put into this" From my opinion this video shows how the mind could be guided to a certain predetermined direction,by rationally putting a series of objects,slogan,posters etc the guy reached the goal to let them think,act and draw as he wanted. That's what I understand,but since my poor english and the late hour, I could probably lost something about the random process...have a good day bro

@Mykillyang If you watched, you could see for yourself they are very similar. And besides, that they were even coming close is already amazing.

Iksnyzcrop, the song is I Put a Spell on You by Screamin' Jay Hawkins - popularized by Creedence Clearwater Revival and covered by many!

@Hopleet You should come up with an advertising campaign to promote that idea. It'll be a hard sell.

My idea is that the man with glasses was covering the trick. He exchanged the envelope at some point after 2'42", the moment after which Mr. Brown changed his posture and the way of waving his hands. The expressions and posture of mr With-Glasses shows, at my opinion, very much as well. Mr Without-Glasses was gnuinely surprised instead.

@MrStillmans There's another video of Brown though where they have the same "company business" of stuffed animals. But they resorted to completely different things other than harps, wings, etc. I'm trying to find the other video of Darren Brown on KZfaq but I believe it's been deleted

great video! Darren is great, really. would it be possible to have here the titles? You know, lots of us around here are not English native speakers, so titles would make our lives (listening) easier. Thanks anyway.

0:05 zoo 0:09 zoo gate 0:16 slogan 0:16 logo plus name 0:28 harp 0:36 logo The obvious stuffed bear 6.08 bear with harp (forgot that one)

Wow! This just goes to show how our external can influence our internal. This technique could be used in our lives to change our own internal emotions and thinking processes, by placing "happy" "peaceful" "loving" 'Inspired"imagery around us. Thanks for sharing

Subliminal advertising has been outlawed in both the US & UK. Google it. Under the threshold of your conscious mind. Why do you think corporations spend BILLIONS on advertising. Not all are susceptible, but don't underestimate it.

If you watch out for signs/traps like these in life, you will exhaust your energy pretty quickly.

I see. I believe this and I've been practicing some of it for some time now. My comments usually emit and attract disrespect, since that's how you get people to really get serious with their arguments.

I was trying to think of what verbal cues he could have possibly given them. I was shocked when it was the taxi ride that gave them the ideas, really cool.

it's got to be the switching envelopes deal. He was able to see what they were doing, drew up something similar, and able to switch out the envelopes. It's an age old trick, with a great new twist...I just can't suss out when it happens. But they've got multiple camera angles and cuts so I guess I shouldn't expect to figure it out.

Besides just the taxi ride, there's the bear posed like a harp player, and the "gates" that Brown opened to reveal the product.

All very interesting. I'm still figuring out how I'm going to utilise these strategies to get what I want in life!!

@Wargod12344 EDIT: They were driving past the zoo at 0:06 (zoo gate on advertisements) Also the creature heaven sign is better seen at 0:19.

@felrece It's also important to read over what you've written before you post, to make sure your sentences actually make sense. This is something you apparently have not done here.

This is good only because he thinks outta the box .. . that's what everybody needs to do really to succeed at anything . ..

The wall pieces = gates Stuffed bird = wings Stuffed Bear = ..teddybear, duh! Deer head = LYRA. And are the smaller animals positioned at and around the bears feet possibly something akin to fluffly surface,, the cloud? light ceiling = blue sky mebbe?

It is similar to conspiracy theories. I know from experience that when people watch something like "Zeitgeist" or "Loose Change" for the first time, they tend to believe that a conspiracy actually exists and only later you realize how easy it is to get a flawed point across if only you wrap it right and back it up with (what appears to be) facts. Now, I have studied marketing (including consumer behavior) among other things and I know that messages can be conveyed subliminally, but only to a...

He swaps the envelopes while their backs are turned (there were cameras in the room, duh) , they edit the images on the taxi ride. He does an envelope swap on Simon Pegg in the BMX video. Distraction is job #1.

@MishuTaste - Highly unlikely. If someone is aware of the NLP techniques being used, then it isn't likely they will fall for them.

Found my way here from Josh and Chuck's recommendation on Stuff You Should Know.

You have to go by this kind of slowly... They pass the London Zoo. They pass the kids that have blue shirts that have a harp w/ the word "zoo". They pass a coffee shop. Next to the coffee shop there is a caption that says "creature heaven". They pass a skull in crossed bones the skulls look like x-ray skulls of animals. They pass a couple of harps. They pass a series of gates....the courier passing through the revolving door had a similar design to what they come up with. I'm sure there's more.

The car ride wasn't designed to work on the viewer, it was designed to work on the ad agency guys. Seeing subliminal clues in person is a lot different than watching for them on a little computer screen.

quite true, quite true. plus a half hour time table.

others have said similar things about the beginning of the book...supposedly, if you read father into the book, it gets much much better. I really want a copy, actually, but can't find one in the states :(

it is very unlikely that they would have ever risked switching the envelope. i work on TV shows and advertising(in the US) and there is always someone willing to sell out to the highest bidder to expose a fraud ... and the highest bidder often pays very well. ps. it was really really cool to hear about your genius 3 year old.

I like how he talks with actual advertisers but I think if he wants real answers he needs to talk to people who have been thrown out of the business or something. I was watching this documentary called "Programming the Nation?" and the director Jeff Warrick did his homework for sure. He talked to a lot of advertisers candidly and it was really great to see their answers. And then they explained the hidden images in advertisements. It's playing at the Sunset 5 in LA tonight. lat .ms/nRrPum

i can honestly not believe this theres just something about it the exactness of their drawings against his. its just.. unbelievably good

@JamesTKirkCobain of course! that's exactly how it should play out dear boy!

@JamesTKirkCobain no cuz it would have to relate to the idea otherwise the mind wouldnt have recognized it and suggested it.

umm, have you ever heard of destination imagination? (weird name i know). Its basically creativity based performances for kids of all ages. in my group, we are told a chore we have to do, followed by an obstacle. We have half an hour to figure out a creative, unusual way to do the chore, incorporate 5 sound designs with it using 12 everyday items, use an improv acting element,

so here it is guys: min. 0,06 there is a ZOO min. 0,10 a lot of children wearing a light blue sweater with an image on it min. 0,16 there are 2 pieces of paper where is written "where the best dead animals go" min. 0,19 there are the wings min. 0,25 there is the harp min. 0,38 again the wings see how it works??

iodine paint on paper while he is wearing specific contact lenses that are light sensitive. he could see what the image was when he starred it a couple of times. check it out again

Brilliant, totally awesome! (But I saw an episode of "Mythbusters" where they concluded that subliminal messaging is bogus..hmm: )

I suspect what he was trying to get across (did to me, at least) was that, short of being on alert 24/7-an admittedly horrifically exhausting way to exist-we will make inferences about our world with help from our surroundings. Considering that humanity relies on vision for around 80% of information gathering, picking up on visual clues(mostly below the level of consciousness) will influence many, if not most, of our day-to-day decisions.

Christopher could you turn on the closed captioning options for this video? I'm hoping to use it for an online class, but it needs to be ADA compliant. :) Thanks!

@TiagoMorbusSa I'm saying that they might not have meant to fake it. Maybe the people checked it without everyone else knowing?

for real. Derren is Brilliant look for more of his videos

wow there is a movie with Will Smith and its about betting and gambling this reminded me of when he had a major bet against some Asian guy but he had set him up before the final bet by subliminally advertising a set of numbers to him so when they had the bet he already knew what number he was going to choose

the height they were at in a well windowed room in a building far taller than the ones around it triggered the memory of heaven.

@malkavianantitribu its amazing to see how susceptible the human mind is to being conned

i had to watch this twice just for closure lol! XD

What I want to know is how did they manage to filter out all the other visual stimuli during the taxi route to make sure they guys absorbed the details they were meant to.

It's really hard if the suggestion is hidden in an obvious fact that you accept and acknowledge. Then you accept the obvious fact and don't see hidden suggestion that's attached to the accepted statement, in a subliminal way, but the subliminal message still influences you :/