A few years ago there were reports in the news of shopping chains using music containing subliminal messages aimed at reducing the instances of shoplifting.

Is it possible to influence someone's decision by playing music with some kind of embedded subliminal message?

The test could also be extended to test semi-subliminal visual messages in images, such as could be found in advertising.

How about a waiting room with a huge freeze containing semi-subliminal images and/or music with embedded subliminal messages?

The guys could also touch on subliminal learning through the use of tapes (played while the test subjects sleep)

The question: Is it possible to influence someone's decisions with subliminal messages -- by playing music with some kind of embedded subliminal message or using embedded imagery?

I know that it is most definitely possible to influence buying decisions for a particular product through subliminal advertising on tv and film, that's why the u.k. banned it many yers ago. Films are easiest to do as they have many separate frames flicking past the eyes every second. If you replace one of those frames with a product image, say Pepsi, the visual cortex in the brain just tends to blur the images together so you don't see each individual frame, you see a constant moving image. Your conscious mind doesn't register the single frame as it is blurred in with all the other images, but your subconcious mind registers every image, so that when you are then offered a choice in the foyer of Pepsi or Coke, about 90% of people will choose Pepsi, as that is the image in your mind. This has been proven to work. A static image is much harder to do as you can stare at it and actually see the image with your conscious mind, at which point it just becomes a normal bill board.
A mentalist in the u.k. called Derren Brown did a show where he wanted a group of advertising gurus to come up with an idea for a zoo he wanted to promote. He got them to come to his office and then pitched the idea to them. He had already drawn his idea on a chart and left it covered up in the office while they were working on thier ideas. They came up with exactly the same idea as he had. Five individual minds working for the first time together. What he had done was to set up a few subliminal images across London, so that as the advertisers travelled to his office, they went past a shop with an angel in the window, a bus went past with a picture of a bear on the side of it - nothing obvious - just the sort of stuff you would not even look twice at if you were driving through a city. They all saw it but didn't consciously take it in. It works.

Derren Brown also did a show in which he tought a group of people to associat certain things with power, robbery and confidence. When he put these things in a street in london, maneged to get most of them to "rob" a fake secure money transporter. I would like to say that he did decode these peoples association with these things and none were hurt during the process.

well as far as hiding a frame in a tv clip goes i have always been able to see them. its strange most of the time i can even read what is says.