TIDE Flashcards
What is the effect of bright primary colours?
Eg red, yellow, blue (Tide colours)
Connote the positive associations that the producers want the audience to have with Tide.
What is the effect of the sans-serif font?
It can be seen in headings, subheadings and slogans
Creates an informal mode of address, making the advert and product feel more personal.
What does the comic strip style image show?
(Bottom right hand corner)
It depicts a stereotypical representation of women being gossipers who can only converse about domestic life.
Also shows the social interaction that the product may offer.
What does the serif font connote?
The technical details of the advert (eg how it works/its effect) which depicts it as more serious or factual information.
Links to the context of domestic products being new during the 1950s.
What does the dress code connote?
The stereotypical 1950s hairstyle of rollers and curled shows an alignment with beauty standards. Acts as aspirational for fellow housewives.
The depiction of short hair in a headband links to the contextual factor of practicality. Would’ve been worn during women’s war time factory work - perhaps connoting g that domestic work is equally as important as paid jobs.
What are the intertextual references in the advertisement?
Rosie the riveter - the main female wears a red hairband and hold the gesture code of raising her bicep.
This was a campaign to recruit women into factory of farming work during the war.
Therefore, the use of this in the Tide advert may be the producers trying to push women back into domesticity post-war.
Connotes hard work, creating a binary opposite between the women being stereotypically beautiful and working hard.
How does the advertisement link to Stuart Hall’s conceptual road map?
The images of domesticity form this as it shows that a woman’s job is to create domestic perfection.
The scenario presented may have reflected audiences own lives at the time.
How does the advert link to Gauntlett’s identity theory?
Women in the advert act as the epitome of domestic perfection.
The audience may want to construct their own identity against this, due to the representation of idealism.
How does the advertisement link to Van Zoonen’s feminist theory?
It contradicts her argument that the media contributes to social change as Tide presents stereotypical representations of women in the domestic sphere.
This is even more prominent when considering this was a time in which women were becoming more free post-war.
How can Gilroy’s post-colonial theory be applied?
There is a lack of ethnic diversity, which reinforces colonial power which was socially changing at the time.
How can bell hooks feminist theory be applied?
There is a lack of diversity in the advert, only lighter skinned women are seen in the advert showing how they are considered as more desirable, and therefore role models for women.
How can Gerbner’s post-colonial theory be applied?
The advert cultivates the idea that Tide is a brand leader in terms of washday products - it is desirable and superior for women.
What does the women’s indirect mode of address suggest?
The woman is focused on her Tide box by soles looking at it, connoting the prime importance of her relationship with Tide and how she is reliant on it.
What do the lexical fields within the advert connote?
“trust”, “truly safe”, “miracle” suggest that although Tide is a new product it provides solutions to the audiences domestic needs.
Also suggests that it is almost magic, creating the perfect family home for all (but especially the husband) to relax inside of.
What do the hearts above the women’s head act as?
They act as a symbolic code (Barthes)
Connotes the woman’s love and reliance on Tide but could reflect the fact that as Tide helps woman reach domestic perfection - enabling her to maintain a stable relationship with her husband too.
What does the heavy makeup connote?
The makeup juxtaposes the practical hairstyle - this reflects that despite the hard wok housewives had to ungergo, they were still expected to look appealing for their husbands.
(Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze - women are passively looked at, men actively look)
What the effect of the comparative language?
“cleaner”, “any other” is used to undermine brand competitors and show superiority.
What is the product context of the advert?
Procter & Gamble introduced Tide, quickly becoming the U.S. market leader in heavy-duty cleaning products.
DMB&B Advertising Agency: Handled P&G accounts in the 1950s, focusing on building consumer trust through campaigns.
Market Research: DMB&B emphasized P&G’s strong consumer confidence in their ads.
Dual-Media Strategy: Used both print and radio ads simultaneously to build rapid brand recognition.
Housewife Character: Ads featured a “housewife” character to target primary consumers (women) and depicted them as loving and adoring Tide.
Emotional Appeal: Ads created a strong emotional connection to the product, reinforcing Tide’s position as the top choice.
What is the historical context of the product?
The post-WWII consumer boom of the 1950s included 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 developed during this time, for example, washing powder.
What is the cultural context of the advert?
1950s Print Ads: Used more copy than modern ads, reflecting the early stages of consumer culture.
Informational Focus: With many new brands and products, ads provided more details to educate potential customers.
Advertising Conventions: Despite the longer copy, many traditional print ad conventions are still recognizable today.
How is Barthes hermeneutic/proairetic code encoded in the text?
Suspense is created through the enigma of “what women want” (Barthes’ Hermeneutic Code) and emphasised by the tension- building use of multiple exclamation
marks (Barthes’ Proairetic Code).
How does the use of language encode a symbolic code?
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.
How does the text contract binary opposites between Tide and its competitors?
In this text, “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.
It’s also “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.
What is the social context of the advert and how does this link to its target audience?
Social Context (1950s):
Women’s roles expanded during WWII in medical, military, and support roles.
Despite societal shifts, domestic products in the 1950s were still targeted at women.
Target Audience:
Focused on affluent lower-middle-class women, appealing to their need for innovative domestic technologies and products.
What is the effect of band endorsement?
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.
What is the preferred reading (Hall) of the adverts lexical fields?
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.
How does the advert create a direct mode of address?
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”).
Creates a relationship between brand and audience and links to informational mode of address.
How are heteronormative standards encoded in the advert?
Bottom right cartoon strip shows a woman holding up a mens shirt, anchored by the text “will get your shirts whiter”.
Also connotative reference to children “truly safe” enforces traditional norms of a nuclear family.
