Research scientist Emma Lilton believes she has found a way of making subliminal imprinting (SI), which seeks to unconsciously control decision-making and impede free thinking in subjects, highly effective. Ordinarily, SI would be illegal, but when she persuades Jonathan Woodbridge, the frustrated head of an advertising agency, to use her technique in a TV commercial, the results are astonishing. Though SI loses its champions when a car crash ends their lives, Woodbridge's successor, Elliot Mason, retrieves the secret behind SI and intends to employ it to ensure the agency attains unprecedented success. However, an extreme right-wing political party subsequently bribes him to employ the same method in political party broadcasts; the result is a disaster for the nation and the world changes for the worse.