Tide

• Designed specifically for heavy duty machine cleaning
• Procter and gamble launched tide in 1946 and it quickly became the brand leader in America a position it maintains today
• The D'Arcy maisus benton and bowles advertising agency handled p and g's accounts throughout the 1950s
• It's campaign for tide referred explicitly to p and g because their market research showed that consumers had high levels of confidence in their company
• Uniquely Dmbandb used print and radio advertising campaigns concurrently in order to quickly build audience familiarity with the brand
• Both media forms used the housewife character and the idea that it's costumers loved and adored tide
• The post ww2 consumer boom of the 1950s included the rapid development of new technologies for the home designed to make domestic choices easier
• Vaccum cleaners, fridge freezers microwave ovens and washing machines all become desirable products for the 1950 consumers
• Products linked to these new technologies also developed during this time for example washing powder
• Print adverts from the 1950s conventially used more copy than were used to seeing today
• Consumer culture was in its early stages of development and with so many new brands and products entering markets potential costumers typically need more information about them then a modern audience more used to advertising marketing and branding might need
• Z-line and a rough rule of thirds can be applied to its composition
• Bright primary colours connote the positive associations the producers want the audience to make with the product this is reinforced with the comic strip style image in the bottom right hand corner with two women talking about the products using informal lexus susding whizz
• The more technical details of the product are written in a serif font connoting the more serious of factual information that the 1,2 3 bullet point list includes
• Suspense is created through the enigma of what women want and emphasised by the tension building use of multiple exclamation marks
• Barthes semantic could be applied to the use of hearts above the main image. The hearts and woman's gesture codes have connotations of love and relationship. It is connoted that is what women want in addition to clean laundry
• Hyperbole and superlatives, miracle, world's cleanest wash world's whitest wash as well as tripling 'no other' are used to oppose the connoted superior cleaning power of tide to its competitors
• This symbolic code was clearly successful as Procter and gambles competitor products were rapidly overtaken making tide the brand leader by the mid 1950s
• In this text tide gets clothes cleaner than any other washday product you can buy and there's nothing like Procter and gambles ride reinforcestthe conceptual binary opposition between tide and its commercial rivals
• It's also unlike soap get laundry whiter than any soap or washing product known and is truly safe all of which connotes that inferior products don't offer what tide does
• Interesting intertexts to consider would be ww2 adverts for woman lands army and j. Howard miller's Rosie the riveter we can do it advert for the war production coordination commitee
• The representations in these adverts challenge stereotypical views of women being confined to the domestic sphere something society needed at the time as traditional male roles etrr vacated as men left to fight
• In the 1950s while men were being targeted for the post-war boom in americas car industry women were the primary market for the technologies and products being developed for the home
• In advertising for these types of texts stereotypical representation of domestic perfection caring for the family and servitude to the man of the house became linked to a more need for speed,cconvenience and a better standard of living than the women experienced in the pre-war era
• The dress code of the adverts main female character include a stereotypical 1950s hairstyle incorporating waves, curls and rolls made fashionable by contemporary film stars such as Veronica lake, Betty grable and Rita hayworth
• The fashion for women having shorter hair had a pratical catalyst as long hair was hazardous for women working with machinery on farms or in factories during the war
• The headband or scarf worn by the woman also links to the practilaties of dress code for women developed during this time
• For this advert having her hair held back connotes she's focused on her work though this is binary opposed to the full face of makeup that she is wearing
• The images of domesticity form part of the shared conceptual road map that give meaning to the world of the advert. Despite its comic strip visual construction the scenario represented is familiar to the audience as a representation of their own lives
• David guantlett's theory of identity, women represented in the advert act as a role model of domestic perfection that the audience may want to construct their own sense of identity against
• Liesbet van Zoonen - whilst their role socially and politically may have changed in the proceeding war years the advert perhaps contradicts van Zoonen theory that the media contribute to social change by representing women in non traditional roles and using non sexist language
• Bell hooks feminist theory - argues that lighter Skinned women are considered more desirable and fit better into western ideology of beauty and the advert could be seen to reinforce this by only representing modern white women
• This could also be linked to gilroys ethnicity and post colonial theories that media texts reinforce colonial power. Contextually this power has been challenged at this moment in American history by the events of ww2
• Despite women having seen their roles in society change during the war where they were needed in medical, military support and other roles outside of the home domestic products of the 1950s continued to be aimed at female audiences
• The likely target audience of increasingly affluent lower middle class women were at this point in the 1950s being appealed to because of their supposed need for innovative domestic technologies and products
• The increasing popularity during the 1950s of supermarkets stocking a wider range of products led to an increased focus by cooporstiond on brands and their unique selling points
• The likely audience demographic is constructed through the adverts use of women with whom they might personally identify. These young women are likely to be newly married and with young families clothing belonging to men and women on the washing line creates connotations
• The endorsement from good housekeeping magazine makes them an opinion leader for the target audience reinforcing the repeated assertion that tide is the market leading product
• The preferred reading of the adverts reassuring lexical fields 'trust, truly, safe, miracle, nothing like, is that despite being a nrs product tides provided solutions to the audience domestic chore needs
• The indirect mode of address made by the woman in the main age connotes that her relationship with the product is of prime importance. This according to hall is the dominant or hegemonic encoding of the adverts primary message that should be received by you women