Subliminal Messages

I noticed something while I was watching the coverage of the World Cup the other day. The FIFA marketing people had done a little wordsmithing to insert a subliminal command into their sponsor recognition. It is in the open, but disguised because of the keyword is a homonym. I'm going to compare a regular sponsor recognition ad with FIFA's.

Regular:
This program was sponsored by...
Lentils, "Taste the Brown"
...and...
Transmogrifiers 3: Revenge of the SuperHobbes


FIFA:
Sponsorship for FIFA was paid for...
by Budweiser, "The King of Beers"
...and...
by Adidas, "Impossible is Nothing"
...and...
by Coke "Open Happiness"

Now I'll have to watch the game again tonight, but the important part is the 'by' or 'buy' that comes right as they tell you the name of the product. Instead of being an itemized list of sponsors, the portion is now a list of commands that tells people to go out and buy the products of the sponsors.

The question is do they work any better than normal ones? Proponants of NLP would probably say yes, and I myself would guess that a scientific study would reveal that the effectiveness does increase. Now, the person equates the celebration of a good football game with not just the sponsors, but the phrase "buy Coke". Now all they have to do is detect which game you were rooting for and put the highest paying sponsors on your screen when they win.

I see what you did there FIFA. Very clever, and probably not the last we'll see of similar tactics. Of course, I'm sure their use will decline when an old man will tell them that this only influences the weakminded.