BlackDoor MediaComm

Photo by  Inspirationfeed  on  Unsplash By Deron Snyder “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” – Donald Rumsfeld. Few individuals can express an idea as eloquently as former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. But his most famous quote boils down nicely as follows: Crises happen. That much is known. But the who, what, where, when, why and how are often unknown. One morning, you’re the happy leader of the world’s largest hotel operator. The next morning, you’re announcing that 500 million guests might’ve had their personal data stolen by hackers . “We deeply regret this incident,” Marriott’ President and chief executive Arne Sorenson said in a statement Friday. “We fell short of what our guests deserve and what we expect of our ourselves. We ...

Photo by  claire jones  on  Unsplash By Deron Snyder I was at church about 30 years ago when my pastor mentioned a movie theatre where imperceptible suggestions were flashed on the screen.  One message was, “Drink Coca-Cola.”  The other was, “Eat popcorn.”  He said sales of Coke and popcorn shot through the roof as a result, even though moviegoers received the prods only subconsciously. That story always impressed me and served as proof of subliminal messages. But in my studies on message development and placement this week, I learned that the tale is a hoax. Turns out that James Vicary, the man who coined the term “subliminal advertising” and conducted the theater experiment in 1957, eventually confessed to lying about the results. There are questions as to whether he actually conducted the experiment at all. I’m still debating whether to share my findings with Rev. Wilson. But despite Vicary’s admission, the notion of subliminal adverti...