Opel "The Hypnotized Test Drive" (2014) 2:13 (Denmark)

Opel has a problem. A lot of Danes think it is a boring car. To help change this, Danish agency Uncle Grey went to greta lengths to change this perception-- literally. First they held a focus group, hearing people describe how boring Opel was.
Then a week later, they brought in a hypnotist... Once under hypnosis, all automobile brand prejudices were erased from their memory. From there, the same haters were all of a sudden living the car. When they were bought out of hypnosis, they could not believe how much they liked the car.

What a fun idea.

But wait! Hang on a minute. I think Opel just also proved that subliminal advertising works, too!

Be right back, I'm going to work a hypnotist into my next campaign idea...

Agency: UncleGrey
Client: Nikolaj Ledet, Anders, Olesen, Opel Denmark
Creative Director: Jesper Jørgen Hansen
Creative: Katrine Jo Madsen
Creative: Carl Angelo
Junior Creative: Jeppe Kjøller
Junior Creative: Matthias Nielsen
Chief Operating Officer: Carsten Bülow
Account Executive: Alexandra Roende Thielke
Production Company: Circus Alphaville
Director: Jonas Alexander Arnby
Executive producer: Morten Hoffmann Larsen
Editing: Thomas Daneskov
Head of production: Lotte Rørbye Aagaard
DOP: Niels Thastum
Assistant DOP: Jonatan Mose
Focus puller: Kasper Loft Bylov
TEKO: Rasmus Gaardhøje
Lightnings: Viggo Grumme
Grip: Mikael Kort Kristensen
Props: Dennis Bremholm
Boom: Frank Mølgaard Knudsen
Stylist: Camilla Nordbjerg
Runners: Nikolaj Storgaard Mortensen, Natascha Lerche-Jensen

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Anonymous Adgrunt's picture
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fairuse's picture

That's cheating!

Dabitch's picture

You and ogilvy had the same hypnotized advertising idea... and he destroyed the film.

You may have heard it said that advertising is 'manipulation' . I know of two examples , and neither of them actually happened. In 1957 a market researcher called James Vicary hypothesized that it might be possible to flash commands on television screens so fast that the viewer would not be conscious of seeing them, but his unconscious would see them - and obey them. He called this gimmick 'subliminal' advertising, but he never even got around to testing it, and no advertiser has ever used it. Unfortunately word of his hypothesis found its way into the public prints, and provided grist for the mills of the anti-advertising brigade. The British Institute of Practitioners in Advertising solemny banned the use of subliminal advertising - which did not exist.
My only other example of manipulation will make you shudder. I myself once came near to doing something so diabolical that I hesitate to confess it even now, 30 years later. Suspecting that hypnotism might be an element in successful advertising, I engaged a professional hypnotist to make a commercial. When I saw it in the projection room, it was so powerful that I had visions of millions of suggestible consumers getting up from their armchairs and rushing like zombies through the traffic on their way to buy the product at the nearest store. Had I invented the ultimate advertisement? I burned it, and never told my client how close I had come to landing him in a national scandal.