James Vicary

James Vicary is a market researcher, perhaps best known for popularizing the notion of subliminal advertising in 1957. He claimed that an experiment in which moviegoers were repeatedly shown 0.003-second advertisements for Coca-Cola and popcorn significantly increased the moviegoers' tendency to purchase popcorn and Coca-Cola over a period of time. No detailed study of his findings was released, however, and no independent evidence turned up to support his claim. Eventually, in 1962, Vicary admitted that the original study was fabricated.