Tide

Theorists: David Gauntlett’s ‘PICK AND MIX’ theory, Claude Levi-Strauss, Stuart Hall, Roland Barthes (codes)

Can work with KOV

EXTRA INFORMATION: HOMEWORK NOVEMBER 2023 WASHES WHITER Washes Whiter Notes | Knowt

Lesson 10/11

  • The commercial is the ‘perfect housewife’, she is cleaning and looks put together (hair & makeup). She is also hugging and using Tide which makes her ‘perfect’.

  • Stereotypes are used in the commercial (Stuart Hall’s REPRESENTATION THEORY- stereotypes are used in the media as media producers are often in hegemonic power. They do not understand women so the stereotypes are negative to keep them in power)

  • What it means to be a ‘woman’ is put into a box

  • Cultural hegemony. The woman is white

  • There is a lot more text than KOV

  • There is a ‘Z’ shape composition, the print media is arranged in a ‘Z’ shape and is read in a ‘Z’ shape. Most advertisements are arranged in this way. The audience will read the subheading; where direct address is also used to attract their audience and this advert reinforces collective identity of those who buy it and assumed acceptance that all women buy the brand.

  • Font looks like it is handwritten so it looks more personal…written by a woman? Sense of personalisation, identity, role model (David Gauntlett)

  • There is an example of ‘copy’ (long form of text, where you write a selling paragraph on an advert. Strong use of selling language"!)

  • Slogans are used (rememberable, catchy)

  • Superlatives and tripling are used to show superior cleaning power. it also highlights Tide’s benefits (cleanest, whitest, brightest),

  • Noun ‘miracle’ is used and is a hyperbole which gives the sense of superiority and effectiveness

  • The small image at the edge reinforces familiarity for the audience as it is a typical scene that these women would most likely face on a daily basis

  • At the bottom is the certificate of good housekeeping act, reassuring the audience of tides trustworthiness and it’s superiority

  • Van Zoonen- Women are given a simplistic representation. Her role is to do laundry and reinforces the traditional gender expectations that women had in the 1950s. She is not sexualised but Tide does give her a passive role. It is obvious that she is doing laundry for men. Women are being marginalised still.

  • The costume and gesture codes of the central image of the empowered women represents the arm gesture of Rosie the Riveter (intertextual reference) This can empower women even if it still represents that they are in charge of the domestics. Moreover, linking in further with the war and how women were allowed to be part of the war effort (but then forced back into the home)

  • Roland Barthes- visual codes carry meaning and signal other things

  • The central image represents that the gesture of hugging and adoring the product- just like those who are going to buy the product - also connoting the loving relationship with the brand- emphasised by the love hearts. This will further convince the audience to purchase the product. They embrace their roles as a housewife after the war

  • Construction view of how live should be at the time, tells women that this is their responsibility

Lesson 10/11

ABC CLASS

PRODUCT CONTEXT

  • Designed specifically for heavy-duty, machine cleaning, Procter & Gamble launched Tide in 1946 (1950’s) and it quickly became the brand leader in America, a position it maintains today.

  • 1950s: pre-date second wave feminism (KOV WAS 10 YEARS AFTER: CAME OUT IN THE 2ND WAVE FEMINISM ENVIRONMENT

  • The D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency handled P&G’s accounts throughout the 1950s.

    Its campaigns for Tide referred explicitly to P&G because their market research showed that consumers had high levels of confidence in the company.

  • Uniquely, DMB&B 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 ideology that its customers “loved” and “adored” Tide

  • The post-WWII consumer boom of the 1950s includes the 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 for the 1950s consumer.

  • Products linked to these new technologies also develop during this time, for example, washing powder.

  • Post WWII consumer boom, rapid developments of technology, domestic chores were easier, realised worth and they demanded an increase in their standards of living

Composition:

Industry context:

  • 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, with so many ‘new’ brands and products entering markets, potential customers typically needed more information about them than a modern audience, more used to advertising, marketing and branding, might need.

  • Conventions of print-based advertising are still recognisable in this text however, as detailed below.

Consider how the different elements of media language, and the combination of elements, influence meaning:

  • 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.

  • This is reinforced with the ‘comic strip’- style image in the bottom right-hand corner with two women ‘talking’ about the product using informal lexis (“sudsing whizz”).

  • The more ‘technical’ details of the product are written in a serif font, connoting the more ‘serious’ or ‘factual’ information that the ‘1,2,3’ bullet point list includes.

Consider theoretical perspectives: Semiotics – Roland Barthes

  • Suspense is created through the enigma of “what women want” and emphasised by the tension building use of multiple exclamation marks.

  • Bathes’ Semantic Code could be applied to the use of hearts above the main image. The hearts and the woman’s gesture codes have connotations of love and relationships. It’s connoted that this 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 (Barthes) was clearly successful as Procter and Gamble’s competitor products were rapidly overtaken, making Tide the brand leader by the mid-1950s.

PART 2: STARTING POINTS – Representation

Industry Context:

  • In the 1950s, while men were being targeted for the post-war boom in America’s 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 representations of domestic perfection, caring for the family and servitude to the ‘man of the house’ became linked to a more modern need for speed, convenience and a better standard of living than the women experienced in the pre-war era.

Consider how selection and combination of aspects of media language constructs representations of gender:

  • The dress codes of the advert’s 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 practical 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 practicalities that women’s dress codes developed during this time.

  • For this advert, having her hair held back connotes she’s focused on her work, though this is perhaps binary opposed to the full makeup that she’s wearing.

    Consider theoretical perspectives:

  • Stuart Hall’s theory of representation - the 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.

  • Despite its ‘comic strip’ visual construction, the scenario represented is familiar to the audience as a representation of their own lives.

  • David Gauntlett’s theory of identity - 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.

PART 3: STARTING POINTS – Audiences

Consider how media producers target, attract, reach, address and potentially construct audiences:

  • 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 corporations on brands and their unique selling points.

  • The likely audience demographic is constructed through the advert’s use of women with whom they might personally identify (Uses and Gratifications Theory).

  • These young women are likely to be newly married and with young families (the men’s and children’s clothing on the washing line creates these 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 (Stuart Hall) 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.

Consider theoretical perspectives: Reception Theory - Stuart Hall

  • The indirect mode of address made by the woman in the main image connotes that her relationship with the product is of prime importance (Tide has what she wants).

  • This, according to Hall, is the dominant or hegemonic encoding of the advert’s primary message that should be received by “you women.”

  • 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”).

Cultivation Theory - George Gerbner

  • Advertising developed significantly during the 1950s and this theory, developed by Gerbner in the early 1970s, 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.

  • Gerbner’s theory would argue that the repetition of these key messages causes audiences to increasingly align their own ideologies with them (in this case positively, creating a product that “goes into more American homes than any other washday product”).