Subliminal Part 1

 10/25

“So, what's this then?” Max coughed loudly from his place at the head of the conference table in the boardroom of his high-end fashion empire. Women squawked excitedly as they gathered around an image projected on the screen at the other end of the room. There were obvious benefits to stuffing one's company board with attractive young women, but at times it really was like herding cats. “Ladies!”he finally barked, “explain!”

“The panel...” Anita his CFO turned to face him at last, her eyes bulging with wonder. “The test audience. The one we ran last week for the new ad... You know...” her voice dropped to a whisper as if there might be spies in the room, “...the subliminal one.” She turned back to the projector screen and Max followed her gaze. It was a shot of a young red-headed woman walking in the snow whilst dripping in Max Vektor merchandise – not just the dress and knitted roll-neck from their latest line but also a bag, a watch, boots – all high-end and very expensive. The penny dropped. It had worked. “Boss...” Anita turned back to him. “This is Kevin.”

“Kevin!?” Max almost spat out his morning coffee. “You mean this is a guy? And the ad did this to him?”

“Well, technically he did this to himself,” Anita replied. “But, yes, after watching the ad. His wife sent this picture in last night. Apparently he is completely addicted to our products now. He is completely obsessed with trying to look like the models from the commercial. She is threatening to sue.”

“But...” Max tried to stifle a smirk, “I thought the test audience were all women. Didn't Marketing only show it to our usual demographic of customers?” His smirk quickly disappeared as he began to ponder the potential legal consequences.

“They were,” said Anita. “I mean they did. But Kevin, he's the video tech who ran the test screening.”

“I see...” relief washed over Max and his grin returned. “So, he works for us... Well then, it should be pretty easy to keep this out of the press. We just need to give Kevin's wife some shares in the company and make sure that ad never sees the light of day!”

“Aren't you forgetting something, Boss? Anita responded urgently. “We previewed the ad in our last board meeting two days ago.” She glanced back at her colleagues frantically gathered around the screen. “We all watched it! You watched it!”