James McDonald Vicary (April 30, 1915 – November 7, 1977) was a market researcher best known for pioneering the concept of subliminal advertising with an experiment in 1957.
It was later suggested that the results of his experiments had been fraudulent.
Vicary was unable to ever reproduce the results of his experiments.
Vicary himself admitted that he had never conducted the subliminal "experiment" — it was concocted as a gimmick to attract customers to his failing marketing business.