The story is the stuff of advertising legend. In 1957 at a movie theater in New Jersey, messages too brief to be consciously detected were flashed on the screen during a movie: “DRINK COCA-COLA” and “EAT POPCORN.” Without knowing why they were doing it, people streamed to the concession stand and plunked down good money for overpriced movie snacks. The marketing researcher James M. Vicary reported a 37 percent increase in popcorn sales and an 18 percent increase in Coca-Cola sales (Karremans et al. 2006; Strahan et al. 2002). In the same year, Vance Packard published the bestselling Hidden Persuaders (1957) aimed at describing the subtle ways that marketers were influencing consumers’ choices, and in 1974, Wilson Bryan Key published Subliminal Seduction, filled with illustrations that he claimed demonstrated how advertisers were enticing consumers with sexual messages.