There's a message in recent federal Liberal campaign ads and the party wants you to know it isn't subliminal. Talk-radio fans burned up the phone lines yesterday to complain about what they said was a secret subliminal muzzle flash from a handgun in a campaign ad.

But the Liberals were happy to admit the flash was there.

"It is indeed there and it's not subliminal if you can see it," said Steven MacKinnon, deputy national campaign director, who blamed the rumour on "members of the Conservative war room."

"They should go back to playing their Beatles records backwards," he said.

DESIRED REACTION

He said people upset by the muzzle flash should be as it was meant to convey the importance of a serious issue: Gun control.

"Mr. Harper seems to pine for a U.S.-style gun culture," he said.

But in the Conservative camp, interpretation of the ad was the opposite and accompanied by adamant denials that a Conservative government would loosen handgun controls.

"It isn't evident. You can't see the flash unless you watch it frame by frame," said Conservative communications officer James Flynn.

He said the flash is clearly a subliminal image and called it an attempt to evoke fear. He said the Conservatives only want to scrap the Liberal boondoggle gun registry and favour laws to prevent guns from ending up in criminal hands.

"We're not for limiting legitimate gun owners such as hunters," he said.

Anyway, delivering subliminal messages might not be as easy as some people think.

University of Waterloo psychology professor Mark Zanna said it's impossible to deliver a complex message through a flashed image on a screen.

"People can be subliminally primed," he said, explaining such flashed images can be used to evoke a mental state. But he cautioned such images only work on people who are already thinking that way.

In one experiment, he said, the word "thirst" flashed in a sports drink ad only influenced people to buy the drink when the audience was already thirsty.

sean.mckibbon@ott.sunpub.com