Marketing (TIDE)

• Procter & Gamble launched Tide in 1946 and it quickly became the brand leader in America, a position it maintains today
• The D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency 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 Tide brand
• Both print and radio media forms used the "housewife" character and the ideology that its customers "loved" and "adored" Tide
• Post-WWII consumer boom of the 1950s

  • Rapid development of new technologies for the home, designed to make domestic chores easier
  • Vacuum cleaners, fridge-freezers, microwave ovens and washing machines all become desirable products
  • Products linked to these new technologies also developed during this time, for example, washing powder
• Print adverts from the 1950s


  • Conventionally used more copy than we're used to seeing today
  • Consumer culture was in its early stages of development and potential customers typically needed more information about new brands and products
• 1. line and a rough rule of thirds

  Composition techniques applied to the Tide advert
• Bright, primary colours


  Connote the positive associations the producers want the audience to make with the product
• Headings, subheadings and slogans

  Written in sans-serif font, connoting an informal mode of address
• Comic strip style image

  Connotes informal lexis ("sudsing whizz") used by the two women "talking about the product
• Technical details of the product


  Written in a serif font, connoting the more "serious" or "factual" information
• Suspense created through the enigma of "what women want"


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

  Connote love and relationships
• Hyperbole and superlatives


  "Miracle", "World's cleanest wash!", "World's whitest wash!"
• Tripling


  "No other..."
• Tide became the brand leader by the mid-1950s, overtaking its competitors
• "Tide gets clothes cleaner than any other washday product you can buy!"


  "There's nothing like Procter and Gamble's Tide"
• Tide is "unlike soap"


  Gets laundry "whiter than any soap or washing product known"
• Tide is "truly safe"
• Adverts for the "Women's Land Army" and "Rosie The Riveter" challenged stereotypical views of women being confined to the domestic sphere
• In the 1950s, women were the primary market for the technologies and products being developed for the home
• Stereotypical 1950s hairstyle

  Incorporating waves, curls and rolls made fashionable by contemporary film stars such as betty grable
• Headband or scarf worn by the woman


  Links to the practicalities of dress code for women developed during WWII
• The images of domesticity are part of the "shared conceptual road map" that give meaning to the "world" of the advert
• The advert represents women as models of domestic perfection that the audience may want to construct their own sense of identity against
• The advert could be seen to reinforce the western ideology of beauty by only representing "modern", white women
• The likely target audience is increasingly affluent, lower-middle class women being appealed to because of their supposed need for innovative domestic technologies and products
• 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
• Reassuring lexical fields


  "Trust", "Truly safe", "Miracle", "Nothing like"
• Indirect mode of address

  Connotes that the woman's relationship with the product is of prime importance
• Direct mode of address


  In the images in the top right and bottom left hand corner, linking to the imperative "Remember!" and the use of personal pronouns
• Advertising developed significantly during the 1950s and Cultivation Theory explains how 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, it's a desirable product for its female audience, and its "miracle" claims are an innovation for the domestic washing market
• Use of the RWB colours encourage patriotic ideologies and increase appeal especially in post war USA
• Woman given stereotypical "clueless" look which connotes low intelligence - appeals to men
• Print advert uses 'American dream' symbolism, such as the nuclear family to appeal to the middle class US population post war
• Rule of thirds is applied, alongside 'z line composition' - information in ever segment - this is done as it is a new product and people didn't know much about it
• Use of Bright red and bold lettering throughout is a hard sell tactic to make the product and the key information stick in the readers minds and to make the product stand out from the crowd
• Strong patriarchal ideologies are presented in the print such as in the cartoon (stereotypical of the time) where the women are filling the stereotypical 'happy housewife' role and this increases the appeal as these women can act as role models to the readers