IT appears that the Bermuda/Hawaii tourism advertising controversy has legs as far as the news media is concerned. What started out as an item on the front page of has been picked up by the wire services and featured on satellite TV outlets.

If you happened to be watching the CNN Headline News, as I was last Sunday, you would have suddenly been jolted to see a report featuring live shots of Bermuda with a commentary about the tourism ad controversy and Hawaii's hurt feelings about Bermuda's use of its beaches in its tourism advertising.

Local photographer and National Liberal Party (NLP) vice-chairman Graeme Outerbridge was quoted in as slamming the advertising campaign as "dishonest".

I tend to agree. There are beaches in Bermuda, seen and unseen, that could have very well been used in a Bermuda tourism ad. And there are more than enough beautiful Bermudian models of all shades and colours who could have been used for the decorative semi-nude shot.

Bermuda essentially got caught red-handed and red-faced by using a Hawaiian beach in its tourism advertisaing campaign.

However, Tourism Minister Ren?e Webb, in her delayed reaction to the controversy, was correct when she stated (as did Tourism Department assistant director for marketing Michael Decouto) that generic, stock pictures are often used in marketing campaigns - although consumers are rarely aware of this fact.

This may come as a shock to those who have taken a moral stance on this issue. But there really is no such thing as truth in advertising, at least in the minds of the account managers and creative directors of the multi-billion-dollar advertising firms that can be found in New York City, London and Los Angeles.

Their aim is to get you to buy what they are selling by any means necessary. And contrary to popular belief and the hullabaloo being kicked up in what could be called the Bermuda/Hawaii tourism connection, it is not what you see with the naked eye that is always the most effective lure to make you buy whatever an advertising agency is promoting.

It is what is unseen that is frequently more alluring - what is absorbed by the sub-conscious mind, the art of subliminal seduction.

Scientists have discovered that the human brain has 37 ways in which it processes information; that number may, in fact, be higher. But what's important is that many of these processing patterns may operate without your consciouness or awareness and are going on at a subliminal level.

It is by exploiting and appealing to these internal processes that modern advertising seeks to influence and induce you to buy what they are hawking.

Just take the stylistic changes in the marketing methods used to sell blue jeans as an example.

Jeans originated as work pants first for miners in the Wild West and then were adopted for use by the US Navy; today they are probably the best known example of Western clothing apparel in the world.

At first there was only the still-popular dungarees style of jean; in fact, they were better known as dungarees than jeans when they first became popular. Then different cuts and different colours were introduced and, in recent times, the so-called torn look was added and now the dusty-to-the-point-that-they-need-a-wash look is called style (at least among the younger set).

Now who told the great buying public that, given the wide variations that we have seen jeans go through in recent years, each slight variation in the product marks the new, preferred, must-have style?

Such demand is introduced subliminally, through clever marketing campaigns that make the consumer feel completely left behind unless he or she mothballs the jeans already hanging in their closet.

How else would they get us to accept something which, in all probability, we may consider to be absurd in terms of style (those baggy jeans cut just below the knee, for instance)?

A year ago we certainly would not have worn such clothing but today, if the ads tell us something is considered to be the latest fashion, we rush out and buy it.

As far as the public's demand for truth in advertising is concerned, if we - the consumers - had the power to enforce our will then most likely we would run the risk of collapsing a multi-billion-dollar industry, with all of the attendant economic ramifications.

And many of us would probably experience the consumer equivalent of withdrawal symptoms as a result of having been subliminally told all of our lives what to buy under the guise of believing we were exercising our freedom of choice.

about it, people. These methods have even been used to seduce us into buying products that we know can bring harm to our bodies. The use of tobacco comes to mind. Despite the risks of cancer and emphysema, the fact is that as long as cigarettes continue to be advertised sales and profits continue to rise.

Many of the developed nations have now moved to ban cigarette advertising and we have had some cases where tobacco companies have been successfully sued by people who claimed that their health problems are the result of falling victim to cigarette advertising.

However, to date the fast-food industries have successfully fought off similar attempts to sue them over their use of advertising to promote the sales of their fattening, nutritionally-wanting products.

It appears that the machinations of the advertising world may have a greater impact on our lives than any of us would freely care to admit.

I am not making excuses for the advertising embarrassment Bermuda finds itself in; I am just merely pointing out that the strategies and tactics employed in advertising and marketing are a lot more complicated - and a lot more deceptive - than most of us would ever dream.

And this will continue to be the case as long as the large advertising and marketing firms are backed by powerful interests in government, the corporate world and even among consumers themselves.