Iron Chefs Delight

A few months ago, we were presented with an opportunity to attend a dinner cooked by Chefs Sakai and Chen from the original Japanese version of Iron Chef.  I failed in my attempt to convince Scott to part with $1000 to enjoy one memorable meal, but the fabulous Sydney based blog Not Quite Nigella gives a great account of the evening, complete with everything from a happy jolly Sakai to the beautiful dessert course.  Check it out, and have a drool.

Subliminal Scandal

I was sent a youtube video by a colleague today that was supposed to be something about subliminal media adverts. I assumed it would be some sort of high concept viral marketing video … maybe the latest ‘bouncy ball’ style affair. But no, it was a segment from an Australian show Media Watch – the kind of show in which people write in and comment about things they saw on TV and the same voices read out all the letters.

It turns out that laced throughout the entire Aria Music Awards Show (the Australian equivalent of the Brits or the Grammys) were a whole bunch of subliminal adverts. These adverts are incredibly short, just 1/25th of a second at a time, and are designed so that you don’t realise that you’ve just seen them yet you still think about the product. It’s the kind of thing that Tim could tell us all about – the nature and timing of human attention. They’re little flashes of product placement to appeal to your commercially minded subconscious.

And they were smartly done: during the listing of the nominees for best female artist were single frame flashes of products aimed at women; the tops bands were interspersed with a single car name.

But hey, what a surprise, adverts “below the threshold of human attention” are forbidden. Naughty naughty.

[You can watch the video here.]

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