Final answer:
Contemporary research indicates that the impact of subliminal advertising on behavior is minimal. While individuals can process information outside of conscious awareness, subliminal messages tend not to significantly alter behavior outside of laboratory settings.
Step-by-step explanation:
The contemporary understanding of subliminal advertising's impact on an individual's behavior suggests that its effect is, in general, quite limited. While it's true that in controlled laboratory settings, individuals can process and respond to information that's outside of their conscious awareness, the consensus among researchers is that such hidden messages have little impact on our behavior in the real world. This is contrary to the speculative claims that subliminal messages in advertising can substantially alter behavior.
It has been found that while advertising is effective in raising the sales of products through overt and conscious means, the influence of subliminal messages seems to be negligible or subtle at best. Naomi Klein's work on corporate branding and advertising practices suggests a more transparent and conscious engagement with brands, aligning with the post-millennial understanding of marketing strategies, which are far from the covert tactics implied by subliminal advertising. Additionally, the impact of advertising could be linked more strongly to theories like intermittent reinforcement and the basic principles of conditioning, rather than subliminal influence.