That burns me up. Isn't subliminal advertising illegal? Is this how low Food Network will go?

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it was clearly accidental. and even if it wasnt, why should it be illegal? we need big brother telling the food network how they are allowed to advertise?

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as a person who works in TV, i can tell you this is soooo unlikely to be a "mistake"

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that's too long to be a subliminal. video frames are approx 1/72 of a second (film is 1/24) and would not be that easily noticed. i'm going with it being a mistake.

also, it's more likely to be the cable network's doing as they have more control over inserting advertising accidentally. to have the food network consciously work to insert a single frame ad and think they wouldn't get caught seems ridiculous.

as for the legality, my understanding was that subliminal advertising works agaist the will of the individual viewer by implanting an idea, concept, desire, whatever into their subconscious. to those who don't understand the importance of legislating against such things i propose we allow politicians to insert subliminals into their ads. or state of the union addresses.

suddenly the president has a 100% approval rating!

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This is a terrible direction for the Food Network to go....if it were advertising for something GOOD, like fresh fish, exotic fruit, scotch, that's one thing, but to sublimate the audience with ads for the anti-food arches, it's disgusting (almost as bad as showing Emeril and Rachel for most of the day.

There aughta be a petition to let them know how I fee. ACtually I could care less...now that the Travel Chennel is doing cool food shows, I don;t really watch the Food Network anymore, except Good Eats.

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First, video runs at 29 frames per second. 29.97 to be precise.

Second, If you notice subliminal advertising, it isn't subliminal, is it? This was very noticable.

Did they do it on purpose? Probably. Does it matter? Probably not. 1 frame of the McDonald's logo flashing before me during a show I am watching, is NOT going to influence me to eat that garbage anyway.

Calm down folks, I think everything is going to be ok.

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Subliminal advertising is a hoax. It doesn't work. The original studies that talked about it were designed to sell a product that produced subliminal messages. But they were all faked and peer-reviewed scientific studies can not reproduce the effects.

There is ample documentation about this, but here are a few links to get you started:
http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_187.html

I should think anyone in marketing knows about this, and I doubt they'd waste the money and potential public backlash to try it. I'd say it was a glitch.

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Is it possible that this is a form of advertising meant to get the attention if people recording the program on DVR or other recording devices?

I've heard of several commercials where it is a static image for the length of the commercial with a voice over so that even if you are fast forwarding through it, you'll see the company logo or message, even though you don't hear the voice over. Maybe this is somehow related to that.

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I don't think this was accidental: McDonalds was one of the sponsors of Iron Chef for this particular episode.

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I'd say the advertisement worked if it got even lowly blog readers to argue about it. ;)

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I remember watching Top Chef season 1 and seeing so much product placements. I think the most obvious example was when Stephen said something along the lines of "I spent last night searching for information on AOL"... AOL?

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Lowly? Speak for yourself there, Francis.

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they got you talking about them didn't they?

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Just FYI, Top Chef is not a Food Network Show. It is a Bravo show, and they make no secrets about having Kenmore as a paying sponsor for their series. Likewise, Project Runway has the TRESsame salon, the L'Oreal hair and makeup salon, the Banana Republic Competition. It's no different than the paid product placements in movies, think the action adventure genre hyping nokia phones, Apple notebooks, mini cooper cars, or what have you.

I agree, that clip was too long to be "subliminal" but it is apparently a way to get people who usually fast forward through 30 second commercials, spend 5 minutes slow mo ing through each frame looking for an "insidious mind warping message"...

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Its called product placement. Ever watch American Idol and notice the Coke cups? Ever watch a movie?
Companies pay to have their products placed in whatever form of media your heart desires.
Or maybe the FoodNetwork is filmed at Area 51.
If Kenmore gives TopChef free kitchen appliances,
shouldnt they get the right to have their product named? Only 6 people watch that show anyway. Do you
think 6 people not buying Kenmore products is going to cause them financial hardship? I buy GE appliances
because thats what the Munsters used.

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Are we sure that this YouTube video wasn't altered? That the person didn't ADD the ad to create a story that wasn't there? Wouldn't be the first time, not sure I trust this 'viewer' as much as I would trust Food Network, which I have found to have wholesome shows. I never have to worry about what the kids see either in the shows themselves OR from their ads, unlike network TV which I have to monitor constantly so the kids do not see ads that are as inappropriate for children as the prime time shows themselves are.
No... I think the "something" that's not right here is the uploaded & submitted video.

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Ok... appending my comment... as ASaucyGal pointed out... the show was TOP CHEF on Bravo... NOT "Iron Chef" which is on Food Network... way to pay attention ASaucyGal!! As to Bravo, I don't know the network enough to guess if this was accidental, on purpose, or not done at all which leads back to my first thought that perhaps it's the YouTube video that can't be trusted.

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LOL..while it was only actually banned in the UK, it's considered an unacceptable practice by the FTC. As other's have pointed out it' been proven it doesn't work anyway. So it's unlikely that the foodnetwork and McDonalds (because, like, they aren't making any money and are desperate to bring in customers....) would risk a possible FTC fine on something proven ineffective. Most time the simple answer is the most obvious, human error. But that's not sexy enough for conspiracy buffs! Bur really, it sounds like the some folks need to go back to looking for all those naked women in ice cubes and the word sex spelled backwards in cereal...

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What bull. Did you know that when you see products used by the 'chefs,' that every label is a phoney? The brands, etc, are all fake. This is so there is no product placing. If say, Alton, is in a store, yes, the store name is mentioned, but no actual product names are shown.

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You gotta be smarter than televison. I don't care how many subliminals they throw in there, I won't eat McDonalds. And this is just another reason why.

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