This is a Hollywood-type confusion, very frequent.

A catastrophic event, as the one clearly meant in the summary, is one where lots of people die, technology is damaged (ie, electric infrastructure is busted, telecomm stops working, etc.) and life as we know it is no more, but life goes on.

Apocalypse is an event of biblical origin (apocalypse is the last book of the Bible, meaning "revelation"), and it explains the end of the world, that is, the end of life as we know it, and the world as we know it, and humans in general as we know them. Apocalypse will be a time when the dead will live again, with different qualities, and Earth will be renewed.

So talking of "life after apocalypse" is a confusion of terms. It would be a lot more proper to talk of "life after a catastrophic event".

It usually churns my stomach -as a Christian- to watch movies like 2012, where we have an "apocalypse" (catastrophic event falsely linked to the biblical event) just to find out that now we have a broken up, backwards world, ruled by some advantageous morons, and inhabited by egotistical ciizens. My, what a world!

To keep things clear, the main event of the biblical apocalypse is the second coming of Jesus Christ, to renew everything and rule an eternal life of complete happiness. And, if you are not christian, or believer, if you are a person (a lot of them here on /.) who mock on religion, judging that it is a lie, or a loss of time, or such opinions, at least accept the "apocalypse" as a cultural-literary event, described in the most reproduced book in history.

Apocalypse will invove a catastrophic event, no doubt, but things afterward will be a lot different.

If consumers really believe that their (our) will is unmodified after being bombarded by publicity, it must mean we know very little about who or what we are.

People is greatly influenced by their surroundings, and while nobody can say I drink Coke, wear Docker's, drive GM or read Slashdot against my will, it is quite undeniable that the knowledge of their existence wasn't in my mind before I saw some publicity. At some moment I decided on using such products, and usually, rejecting at the same time other choices.

As someone said a few comments above, a little tip to the will is good enough to make me buy some product (against some other or even against no product at all). And while subliminal won't have me acting against my will, the process of "tipping my will" is most decidedly against my will. Publicity -subliminal or otherwise- has a definite effect on my will, and the only way to avoid that would be to make such an effect conscious, and consciously deny it, or isolate myself from the cause (a little hard to do).

In that sense, subliminal publicity, as far as it is a lot harder to make conscious, is also harder to "fight" against. No, I won't buy against my mill but I could be more inclined to make a certain choice and not know why.