Lots of people think subliminal advertising means that advertisers get us to buy their products by secretly inserting in their TV ads the words “sex” or “buy this” – words that fly by so fast that viewers aren’t even aware they’ve seen them. It works because, as we all know, if you see the words “buy this” flash by so fast that you don’t even know you’ve seen them, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to prevent yourself from hopping in the car and purchasing that product, even if you don’t want it or need it.

If subliminal advertising really worked that way, we’d all be saying things like, “Gee, honey, why did you buy a 50-pound sack of dog food when we have a cat?” or, “Why did I just buy a riding mower when we live in a high-rise?”

That doesn’t mean there isn’t subliminal advertising. It just means it doesn’t work the way most people think it does, like some kind of evil hypnotism.

Here’s how it really works. You see an ad for a company that delivers pizza. The ad talks about how good the pizza tastes, how inexpensive it is, how happy you and your family will be that you didn’t have to cook dinner – time you can now spend watching more TV and even more pizza commercials.