Tide

Context: Basic Info

• Year: 1950s

• Manufacturer: Procter & Gamble (P&G)

• Advertiser: D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B)

Context: 1950s

• During WW2, factories were run predominantly by women as most men were fighting in the war. They primarily produced weaponry and other war supplies, but when the surviving men returned, women were replaced, and the production of white goods (e.g. washing machines) took over. As a result, women were forced back into the home, leading to the popularisation of the ‘housewife’.

• Second-wave feminism began in the early 1960s and focused on addressing gender roles when it came to families.

• Consumerism increased by 115% in the 1950s, leading to products like Tide being launched with iconic and recognisable marketing strategies.

Media Language & Representation: The Ideal Woman

• The housewife character in the dominant image is cradling the box of Tide as if it were a baby, and the hearts above her head are a symbolic code (Barthes) often associated with love, and their light pink shade is a semantic code (Barthes), connoting maternal love. These elements work in combination to present housewives as caring and motherly.

• Ideas of homemaking are communicated via the housewife character appearing multiple times on the poster, completing the stages of Tide (buying Tide, then washing and drying clothes), thus acting as an action code (Barthes).

• Women were seen as commodities, explaining why the housewife character is costumed in a fashionable 1950s polka dot dress with her hair tied up in a bandana and her makeup done whilst doing mundane tasks like washing.

• An intertextual reference is made to Rosie the Riveter, a famous character used in the 1950s to represent women’s efforts in WW2. She wears a red polka dot bandana and a darker blue costume, connoting ideas of patriotism, thus suggesting buying and using Tide is a patriotic act and therefore an attractive thing to do when aiming to be the ‘ideal woman’.

• This representation of the ‘ideal woman’ is undoubtedly idyllic and therefore a negative stereotype of women, as it shows a traditional hyperfeminine image (Hall) of what men expected of women, showing the belief that they are simply love objects for men (van Zoonen).

Media Language: Building Trust

• The dominant image is a medium close-up, positioning the audience in close relation to the subject, who is the housewife character. This helps establish a relationship between her and the audience, creating trust as well as a recognisable brand mascot for Tide.

• The housewife character is facing the right, presenting her as a protagonist, once again, building trust. She is looking up to the product, which she is cradling, giving it a sense of dominance over her.

• The Tide box is a saturated red/orange colour that is a semantic code (Barthes) as it has connotations of urgency, implying that one must buy Tide upon seeing this advert. This contrasts with the blue letters spelling out Tide, creating focus, and the yellow rings around the title draw attention to the word ‘Tide’, which is important when marketing a product, so potential customers remember what it looks like.

Media Language: Slogan

• The sans-serif font used for the slogan is a semantic code (Barthes) with connotations of informality and modernity, as well as a cultural code (Barthes) due to the font’s cultural association with Tide.

• The slogan is in a saturated red/orange colour to formulate a sense of continuity, making the adcert satisfying to look at. This is a semantic code (Barthes) as it has connotations of urgency, creating excitement and implying that one must buy Tide upon seeing this advert.

• ‘Tide’s got what women want!’ is short and snappy, only containing words with one or two syllables and using alliteration of the ‘w’ sound to make this slogan more memorable. Furthermore, this includes an enigma code (Barthes) because it is not specified what it is that women want. 

• The slogan follows a wave shape, alluding to tidal waves and making the product name easier to remember.

Media Language: Header & Footer

• The header refers to ‘you women’, implying this advert was created by men and, obviously, targeted toward women. Perhaps this explains why the representations are idyllic and somewhat patronising.

• The footer repeats ‘Tide’ once more, using the saturated red/orange colour to ensure the product’s name is memorable. The housewife character appears for a final time, instructing viewers to ‘remember!’ and, as a result of building trust, potential customers are likely to take on her word.

Media Language: Comic Strip & Extra Info Box

• P&G are name-dropped by one of the characters in the comic strip, referencing the company’s success as a trusted brand, linking to the Good Housekeeping stamp to the left of the comic strip. Both of these elements are cultural codes (Barthes) because they require a certain level of cultural capital from their audience to be understood.

• Ideas of class are brought up here as one of the characters has hung up a blue shirt, which was associated with the working class in the 1950s, whereas the other character is hanging up a white shirt, signifying the middle class. This is done by DMB&B to emphasise the diversity in Tide’s target audience to maximise profit.

• In the extra info box, DMB&B emphasise the binary opposition between Tide and ‘any other washday product’, claiming Tide is much better as it provides consumers with the ‘cleanest’ and ‘whitest wash’.udieA

Audience: Target Audience

• Age: 20-40

• Sex: Female

• Gender: Feminine & Heterosexual

• Race/Nationality: White American

• VALs: Unemployed, Interests such as Beauty, Cleaning, Being a Mother, etc & are Married, Perhaps with Children

• Socioeconomic Group: Middle/Working Class (C1C2DE)

• Young & Rubicam: The Mainstreamer & Succeeder

Audience: Targeting Strategy

• Tide’s target audience is reflected in this advert via the combination of media language and creation of a very specific representation (e.g. the use of direct address like ‘you’). DMB&B do this to position the predominantly female viewers of this advert to take a preferred reading (Hall) by using a female mascot (the housewife character) who is seemingly very happy and put together. This is done to lead the audience to believe that if they use Tide, they will become the ‘perfect housewife’ too.

• Long-term exposure to this advert would have led women to believe this representation of the 'perfect housewife’ is what is expected of them (Gerbner). Sadly, no matter how much women at the time disagreed with this representation, its presence in 1950s society would often lead to them being forced into acceptance.

• It can be argued that a racial hierarchy is being emphasised in the Tide ad, resulting in a binary opposition (Strauss) between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This is because it features a clean, happy, and ‘modern’ white woman, effectively othering women of colour (Gilroy) by only promoting an ideal of whiteness and consumerism as the desirable standard.