I don't really see what purpose this would fulfill.
For example - I'm assuming in the Bomay Saphire ad we are seeing the Eye of Horus / 'The All Seeing Eye'.
I don't see what purpose there would be in putting such a symbol in a such a piece of communication. I don't mean to sound facetious, but I think
you might be seeing things and making connections because you want to find them.
Advertisers do use subliminal methods to draw the eye to an advert or grab our attention, but I think that's as far as it goes.
Again using the Bomay Saphire ad as an example - the shapes in the advert draw the eye towards the glass, which vaguely looks like a face, if
cycloptic. The base of the glass is the smile, the neck is a nose, and the olive is the central focus, the eye -> the contour of the top of glass
brings the attention across towards the bottle's label -> the advertisement's job is done.
If you wanted to go a little deeper, you could possible say the the glass almost has a female shape, thus conotating female seduction with alcohol.
But that might be stretching it a little.... probably a hold over from my old Media Studies essays at college
Advertising, marketing and public relations especially are just forms of propaganda 'rebranded' (to use a suitably fluffy marketing term).
I do think there are legitimate concerns over the effect of advertising, but probably no more than any other form of mass-media communication.
For more on the roots of advertising and P.R. as rebranded form of propaganda, look up Edward Bernays, often said to be the founded of P.R., he was
also the nephew of Sigmund Freud - There was an excellent 4 part documentary on him and advertising in general on the BBC a few years back, by the
same producer as the acclaimed 'The Power Of Nightmares' documentary that you might have seen or read about on here (you should be able to find it
on filesharing networks or torrent sites, both series come highly recommended.
en.wikipedia.org...
www.bbc.co.uk...