Does subliminal advertisement affect consumer behavior? An exploratory comparative analysis between marketing and non-marketing professionals.

This research study is an effort to explore the difference in the understanding of marketers and non-marketers about their perception, awareness, knowledge, attitude and behavior about the subliminal messages in advertising. To serve the objective of comparative analysis conceptual model was developed for both groups which involved Perception, Awareness and Knowledge relationship with attitude, then relationship of attitude on Behavior towards the brand. Three commercials were selected which had embedded subliminal messages and respondents viewed the advertisements before filling out questionnaires to identify their level of awareness and the degree of knowledge about the type of subliminal content embedded in the ads. For each group total of 140 participants gave their responses. Structural Equation modeling was performed to test the hypothesized relationship between variables. Results of Path analysis show that only one factors for marketers, such that Knowledge about subliminal messages had significant positive effect on attitude towards subliminal Ads. Also marketers’ attitude towards subliminal ads was negatively significant on behavior towards brand. For non-marketers, no support for any of the hypotheses found. Overall results reveal that both the marketing and non-marketing professionals view and perceive the subliminal messages embedded in the ads with a statistically significant difference.