Here's an example;take the world famous Virgin logo.If you turn it slighty to the left so that where the underline and tail of the g form an X,you'll also notice the V forms a slightly hidden S and the i,r and part of the g form a broken capital E,spelling the word SEX.
So you have Sex/Virgin in one word.Very clever Mr.Branson.

That Absolut ad is undoubtedly suggesting a vulva. First thing I thought of when I opened a magazine and saw it.

"True Taste" meaning...?

I sometimes wonder if you're pushing it too far but maybe its because I just woke up.

Stop obsessing with sex

The Vibrance web page is awesome. It's design, including "ribs," is safe in the shower. Phew!

And I don't think the handle, with the pulsing clitoris--I mean info button--could be designed to be more suggestive of lady parts.

As a friend points out:
"Actually in the first one, the shadow pointing at her boobs wasn't the first thing I noticed. It was more like the bottle was shaped like a big scrotum with an erect phallus and it was positioned about level with the male model's crotch- and the woman was holding it."

I was looking for a diet coke ad that was on the sides of just about every bus shelter in my city last year. It featured a series of diet coke bottles, tipped suggestively towards disembodied, bright read lipsticked female lips.

I couldn't find it, but the first page I found when I google image searched 'diet coke ad' made me angry and sad...

If your students didn't get the first one, you've got some damn unobservant students.  In ads for peanuts and stuff it might be easy to miss (and I think may be accidental just as often(, but ads regarding fancy liquor are more often than not blatantly sexually suggestive.  If anything, I missed the shadow "pointing at her boobs" because the way she and the man are holding the bottle is much more sexual than the shadow.

Does anyone really think that the peanut packaging was designed to suggest sex? If you are obsessed with any sort of imagery, you'll start to see it everywhere.

“[…] the shadow of the liquor bottle is pointing directly between her nearly bare breasts.”

Nearly bared breasts?

Wow.

Brent Bozell would love you, he would be crazy about you.

Some of these are stretching it I think. I don't see a chocolate vagina. Also the crown is also pointing at the guys crotch, and his legs are soread

As the man said, Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Subliminal and subconscious processing are big areas of scientific research, as a quick check of the psychology and neuroscience literature would reveal. Definitely not "just a layperson idea". Not sure to what extent they've been researched in the context of complex, covert, sexual, social messages like these ads - it's usually more in the context of whether behaviour or brain activity changes in response to stimuli that are below the threshold for conscious sensory awareness, such as images that are flashed up too quickly to be consciously seen. For example, photos of faces with fearful or threatening expressions change amygdala activity in the person viewing the photos (since such expressions act as a cue to suggest the presence of danger or threat), even if flashed up too quickly for a person to consciously perceive (the person reports not seeing anything, but their amygdala activity will only change when a fearful/threatening face, not a happy face, is flashed up subconsciously).

I'm weary of an endless stream of phallic imagery, with the occasional pair of breasts or vagina thrown in, being considered "sex." Can you imagine if we could see suggestive symbolic stand-ins for men's abs, pecs, bulging thighs, round asses, assholes, balls (sans penis), portrayals of cunnilingus, fingering, or other non penis/breast/vagina related sexual activity?

I think it's insulting to call this triad of penis/breasts/vagina (in that order of importance) obsession sex. I mean, immediately, if you accept this narrow, reductive, heterosexual male centered definition of sex, which most people do, then you've placed yourself into a dangerous position of which you aren't even aware.

Because this *is* sex for so many people, if you don't care for this kind of sleazy, exploitive, boring stuff (which won't include your own titillation or sexual enjoyment, if you don't fall into the marketed demographic) then you may lead yourself to believe that you don't care for sex. I suspect that's behind a lot of the fear of sex you see in conservatives and even ordinary women. If I believed this joyless dedication to male ejaculation was sex, I wouldn't like sex either. Maybe I'd try to keep sex education out of schools; obsess about my virginity and purity; try to police my children's sexuality; believe porn was immoral; believe sex was immoral, outside of strictly codified activity.

People say sex sells. I say this ain't sex.

This reminds me of a book I read years ago in college:  The Clam-Plate Orgy (http://amzn.com/0131350382)

I don't think the book is in print anymore, but I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on a copy.

There isn't really anything subliminal about most of these adds. They know sex sells and they're exploiting that fact. Almost all of these adds are obviously sexual in nature.

As usual, the message given to women is: "you are an object, you are here to provide sex" 

how much is intent and how much is damage already done from an over-sexed culture?

but also...sex doesn't sell. Sexism is what sells

Sex sells. Here the same as everywhere else. Someone could do the numbers on how many comments you get on a post on Emile Durkheim's greatest works versus how many you get on something about cross-dressing straight men with lesbian fetishes. In my short experience here, the stats would be overwhelming.

Strange. Some images are obviously and overtly sexual (the Campari ad, the first pic), some much less overtly (the Budweiser one. Both man and woman have the crown pointing at their crotch, and the woman even has her legs closed) and some not at all (the peanut ad. Also, saying "let's face it" is a nice way to force people to have the same opinion).

Any literature suggestions for this topic?

These aren't subliminal, they're overtly sexual.

"Subliminal." You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means...

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The Planter's one caused a lot of "WHAT?!" reactions in my home. I wasn't going to comment until I saw all the "overthinking it" comments. You aren't overthinking it. It's everywhere in everything. Sometimes it could be unintentional (the Planter's? But really....), but that first ad, with the pink V-shaped drink, the treasure-clitoris, and the phallic shadow--it's "subtle" but there, and it's important to call it out.

I believe that this advertisement was meant to be humorous, but this ad for Nikon Coolpix Cameras suggests that the Coolpix S3100 is a superior and  more desirable product, compared to the Coolpix S2100, in much the same way that a woman with large breasts is superior and more desirable compared to a woman with smaller breasts. 

I was making paper roses the other day, and the centre loks like a vagina. I gigglesnorted and carried on - what does this mean? We see generic shapes everywhere and interpret them as we are conditioned to interpret them. I now have a lovely collection of "fanny flowers". teehee.

One needs to understand basic philosophical assumptions to discuss this and other advertising tools. One needs to understand Emergent properties and the reified message.

Go back to basics and read about Emergent properties and the reified advert. Look at Freud and his Nephew Edward. Mars Bars don’t help you work rest and play. Adverts have become completely dislodged from REALITY just like Capital has.