Do you think subliminal messaging still exists in advertising today,just at a more sophisticated level?

I would not say subliminal messaging but there are definitely techniques that elicit certain responses from people and can shift beliefs. You do it everyday from the way guys pick up girls, to the way a sales person closes a sale. You might want to read up on NLP or Neuro-linguistic programming. You would be amazed how much humanity does as a pattern, and how those patterns can be shifted with words, body language... etc.