Tide

• Tide print advert


  Designed specifically for heavy-duty, machine cleaning, Procter & Gamble launched Tide in 1946 and it quickly became the brand leader in America, a position it maintains today
• D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B)


  Advertising agency that handled P&G's accounts throughout the 1950s
• DMB&B used print and radio advertising campaigns concurrently in order to quickly build audience familiarity with the brand</b>
• Both media forms used the "housewife" character and the ideology that its customers "loved" and "adored" Tide
• Media language


  • 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
  • Headings, subheadings and slogans are written in sans-serif font, connoting an informal mode of address
  • Comic strip style image in the bottom right-hand corner with two women 'talking' about the product using informal lexis ("sudsing whizz")
  • More 'technical' details of the product are written in a serif font, connoting the more 'serious' or 'factual' information
• Suspense is created through the enigma of "what women want"


  Emphasised by the tension-building use of multiple exclamation marks
• Hearts above the main image

  Connotations of love and relationships
• 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

  
• Tide gets clothes cleaner than any other washday product you can buy! and There's nothing like Procter and Gamble's Tide, reinforces the conceptual binary opposition between Tide and its commercial rivals

  
• Tide is "unlike soap," gets laundry "whiter… than any soap or washing product known" and is "truly safe" – all of which connotes that other, inferior products do not offer what Tide does

  
• Representation


  • Stereotypical 1950s hairstyle incorporating waves, curls and rolls made fashionable by contemporary film stars
  • Headband or scarf worn by the woman links to the practicalities of dress code for women developed during this time
• Images of domesticity (including the two women hanging out the laundry)


  Form part of the "shared conceptual road map" that give meaning to the "world" of the advert
• Women represented in the advert act as role models of domestic perfection that the audience may want to construct their own sense of identity against
• The advert perhaps contradicts Van Zoonen's theory that the media contribute to social change by representing women in non-traditional roles and using non-sexist language
• The advert could be seen to reinforce bell hooks' theory that lighter skinned women are considered more desirable and fit better into the western ideology of beauty
• Audiences


  • The likely audience demographic is constructed through the advert's use of women with whom they might personally identify
  • 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 advert's reassuring lexical fields ("trust", "truly safe", "miracle", "nothing like") is that, despite being a "new" product, Tide provides solutions to the audience's domestic chores needs
• The indirect mode of address made by the woman in the main image

  Connotes that her relationship with the product is of prime importance
• The direct mode of address of the images in the top right and bottom left-hand corner


  Link to the imperative "Remember!" and the use of personal pronouns ("your wash", "you can buy")
• Advertising developed significantly during the 1950s and Cultivation theory explains some of the ways in which audiences may be influenced by media texts such as adverts
• The Tide advert aims to cultivate the ideas that: this is the brand leader; nothing else washes to the same standard as Tide; it's a desirable product for its female audience; and its "miracle suds" are an innovation for the domestic washing market