Does Sigmund Freud Do Graphic Design For Sunny D?

I was forced took a class with probably the most douchebag professor the world has ever known where we were preached to discussed subliminal advertising.

Having worked in advertising for a bit, I can more clearly see in retrospect that most of the horseshit he was shoving down our throats teaching us was near-impossible. i.e. A media buyer can’t tell a publication that they want to buy a full page ad with a bleed on page 43 of a magazine so that when one has a flashlight handy, the editorial on page 42 shines through, making the product in the ad look like it’s being used as a makeshift sex toy on Betty Homemaker. (I’m not even making this up. Except his “Exhibit A” of this being conducted was a curiously mint, 1971 Playboy that he held up for the class to see.) You wouldn’t know what the hell was being printed on the back of your ad, no less the proportions working out where Freud is dancing all over it.

Yes, there is circumstancial evidence in old school ads designed by some perv art director that do indeed resemble some questionable items (a la Sunny D over here), but will I buy your toilet brush because the soap in the print ad I saw in People remotely looks like jizz? Probably not. Mostly, I just want a clean toilet.