Subliminal-advertising charges required sophistication that earlier advertising lies did not.

Evidence

Packard’s accusations did not have the visceral effect that exposing the exaggerations and outright lies of patent medicine advertising had had earlier in the twentieth century. To accept his claims of designs on our unconscious desires and use of hidden or subliminal messages to turn citizens into slavish consumers required a measure of sophistication, not to mention an awareness of the unconscious. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 518

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in attention-harvesting history; also echoes the earlier chapters on patent medicine muckraking (Chapters on advertising and Progressive-era exposés).