A-Level Media - Tide Advert - Audience - Simple Guide For Students & Teachers

Summary

Mrs. Fisher presents a guide on analyzing the audience for the Tide advert, a key text for A-Level Media Studies under the Eduqas exam syllabus. The video explains how the advert potentially appears in audience-focused questions and delves into the target audience characteristics, predominantly focusing on white females aged 18-40 from post-war eras and mostly in American and allied countries. It discusses how the advert embodies elements that appeal to this demographic through representations, language, and imagery, while also touching upon potential feminist and modern oppositional readings. Audience theories like Gerbner's Cultivation Theory are applied to understand the possible long-term effects and messages instilled by repeated viewings of such adverts. Similarly, the Uses and Gratifications Theory is considered to explain the various ways audiences engaged with media differently in the 1950s than today.

Highlights

• The Tide advert, a print ad from the 1950s, is a staple in A-Level Media Studies focusing on audience representation. 🧐
• White women aged 18-40, especially housewives, are the primary audience for the Tide advert. 👩‍🦳
• A visual nod to Rosie the Riveter ties the advert to iconic wartime propaganda. 📜
• Language in the advert targets women through direct address and aspirational messaging. 💬
• Fashion from the era and images of family life help solidify the advert’s target demographic. 👗
• Gerbner's theory showcases how repeated exposure to such adverts shapes audience perceptions. 🔄
• The advert could be seen as an early site of feminist criticism due to its representation of women. 🚺
• 1950s audiences might have found both entertainment and product information through these adverts. 📺

Key Takeaways

• The Tide advert is central to A-Level Media Studies exams, focusing on audience analysis. 📚
• The primary target audience for the advert is white women aged 18-40, typical housewives of the 1950s. 👩‍🦰
• Imagery, language, and references in the advert craft a narrative ideal for aspirational housewives. 🏡
• Gerbner’s Cultivation Theory helps explain the long-term cultural impact of repeated Tide adverts. 🌱
• Feminist critiques may view the advert as old-fashioned or sexist, reflecting evolving social norms. ✊
• Audiences in the 1950s used adverts like Tide's for information, identification, and aspiration. 🌟

Overview

The Tide advert from the 1950s serves as a historical case study for Media Studies, particularly in understanding audience segmentation and targeting strategies of mid-20th century advertising. With an emphasis on post-war consumerism, the focus lies on white female housewives aged 18-40. These women, navigating a world of new consumer goods and household technologies, find themselves both the subject and audience of this advertising narrative.

Through stylized imagery and strategic language, the advert incorporates a sense of aspiration and inclusion. References to cultural icons like Rosie the Riveter and contemporary fashion trends help reinforce the idealized role of women as both homemakers and modern consumers. The Tide advert doesn't only sell a product; it constructs an image of the desirable post-war lifestyle.

Yet, in retrospect, viewers can unpack feminist and modern critiques of such adverts, revealing layers of societal norms and expectations placed on women. Employing media theories such as Gerbner's Cultivation Theory and the Uses and Gratifications Theory, we can better understand the psychological and cultural impact these adverts had on their audience, making them compelling study materials for discussions about media influence and consumer culture.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Tide Advert and Audience The chapter introduces the Tide print advertisement as a set text for the A-Level Eduqas Media Studies exam. It explains that Tide could be the subject of a question in component one, specifically focusing on either representation or audiences. This video will concentrate on the audience aspect, and the narrator mentions there is a separate video available for representation questions.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Audience Questions Overview The chapter discusses the nature of audience questions, highlighting that they may vary in complexity, from those requiring concise answers to those needing more detailed responses. It emphasizes the necessity of factual knowledge about the product, its target audience, and the strategy used by advertisements to appeal to these specific groups. Understanding and identifying the target audience is an essential skill mentioned as being straightforward.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Identifying the Target Audience The chapter discusses identifying the target audience for an advertisement, focusing on a predominantly female demographic aged 18 to 40. It highlights the challenge of determining the exact age of women shown in ads due to their timeless portrayal, which broadens the appeal to a wider age range. The chapter also touches on historical consumer behavior, noting that in the 1950s, housewives were the primary consumers shopping and managing laundry products for their families.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Demographic of Target Audience This chapter discusses the demographics of the target audience for certain products in 1950s Britain, highlighting that the primary targets were white women aged between eighteen to forty. It notes the limited diversity in advertising of the time, reflecting societal trends and limited immigration, with a focus on why other ethnicities were often underrepresented.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Cultural Context and Appeal The chapter 'Cultural Context and Appeal' discusses the target audience for an advertisement, which appears to be predominantly Americans, with additional appeal to women from post-war Allied countries like Britain. The chapter emphasizes the importance of understanding how the advertisement appeals to its target audience, notably through its selection of characters. The characters in the ad are women aged 18 to 40, chosen for their beauty, which is a strategic choice to enhance the advertisement's appeal to its intended demographic.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Language and Imagery in the Advert The chapter titled 'Language and Imagery in the Advert' discusses the strategic use of language in advertisements to appeal to women, particularly those aspiring to be perfect housewives and mothers. The advert frequently employs the word 'women', emphasizing the target audience. The chapter also highlights the use of direct address, including the frequent use of the word 'you', to engage and resonate with the intended viewers.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Intertextual References and Representations The chapter discusses the use of intertextual references and representations in advertisements. It highlights how direct address can effectively engage the target audience. An example is given of an advertisement that subtly references a wartime propaganda poster featuring Rosie the Riveter, which would be familiar to audiences in the 1950s, recalling the famous 1940s advert.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Marital Status and Family Situations The chapter discusses how fashion and pop culture in the 1950s reflected the values and memories from the 1940s, using the example of women who remembered the Rosie the Riveter poster. It highlights the significance of hairstyles and dress codes, referencing famous film stars like Betty Grable and Veronica Lake whose styles were emulated during the 50s. The chapter underscores how these representations mirrored popular fashion trends of the time, showcasing the influence of previous decades on current styles.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Consumerism and New Technology The chapter discusses the role of consumerism and new technology in shaping societal norms and target audiences, especially in 1950s advertising. It uses a specific advertisement featuring a washing line with men's shirts and children's clothes to indicate that the target audience is married women with children. The presence of a washing machine in the advertisement reflects the growing influence of household technology in the daily lives of families during that era.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Endorsements and Language Use The chapter discusses the rise of consumerism in the 1950s following the end of wartime rationing. With more disposable income, people began purchasing new technologies like washing machines. Advertisements using such items effectively targeted and appealed to audiences in the 1950s who were drawn to modern and aspirational products.
• 05:30 - 06:30: Audience Reactions and Feminist Perspectives The chapter explores the influence of advertisements that leverage fashion and technology trends to appeal to consumers, specifically aiming to impress peers. It highlights a stamp of approval by Good Housekeeping, signifying reliability and desirability. Good Housekeeping, a magazine targeted at homemakers and well-regarded by its audience, serves as an important opinion leader. The chapter delves into the magazine's aspirational impact and its role in shaping the perspectives and decisions of women.
• 06:30 - 08:00: Audience Theory and Cultivation The chapter 'Audience Theory and Cultivation' delves into how advertising strategies are tailored to appeal to specific demographics, in this case, women. The text explains that featuring endorsements from trusted sources, such as Good Housekeeping, can enhance a product's credibility and appeal. This endorsement acts as a seal of approval, making the product more attractive to consumers by leveraging established trust. Furthermore, the chapter discusses the use of persuasive language in advertisements, using terms like 'miracle' and 'trust like no other' to guide audiences toward the intended interpretation or preferred reading of the advert. These linguistic choices are designed to bolster the product's perceived quality and reliability.
• 08:00 - 10:00: Media Usage and Gratification Theory The chapter discusses the Media Usage and Gratification Theory with the example of the "Tide" detergent advertisement. It focuses on how the ad uses language ('brilliant') to elicit a preferred reading from the audience, emphasizing Tide's superiority over other products. It also highlights different audience reactions based on the era and evolving social views, especially noting possible opposition from women with emerging feminist beliefs in the 1950s.

A-Level Media - Tide Advert - Audience - Simple Guide For Students & Teachers Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hello and welcome to my easy-to-understand guide to tight which is a print advert set text at a level for the Media Studies educast exam tied could appear in a question in component one for one of two sections and that is either representation or audiences I'm going to do this video which is going to be focused on audiences so tight but there is a separate video about representations so if you're interested in the representation questions using tied then please check that video out as well and
• 00:30 - 01:00 if it does come up within the audience questions they will be stepped questions some that require a shorter one word or one sentence answers and some that require a more in-depth answer as well and it is going to require some factual knowledge about the product its target audience and some understanding of how that product the advert targets those particular people so you're going to need to be able to identify the target audience for tight this is reasonably simple you can probably tell from the
• 01:00 - 01:30 advert and the choices of people within the advert that the target audience is female predominantly probably 18 to 40 so it's hard to tell the age of the women in the advert because they illustrate it they're almost timeless it's very difficult to tell their age and I guess that helps the advert appeal to a wider age range of people but in the 1950s the kind of people who would be on their own shopping for laundry products and doing the laundry for themselves and their families would have been those women who were housewives and
• 01:30 - 02:00 who had their own families and they would have been around eighteen to forty years of age the product is likely to be targeted mostly at white women don't forget in the 1950s immigration and diversity was only really starting to happen within Britain and predominantly the audience's that were targeted by products on television and in the print media were white women and so perhaps that is why there's a lack of other ethnicities within the advert and
• 02:00 - 02:30 because it does mention America within the advert we can assume that the target audience is predominantly Americans although it would also have appeal to any woman with post-war Allied countries so Britain etc as well what you need to be able to do is have a think about how it appeals to that particular target audience so the fact that the choice of characters when the adverts are women aged 18 to 40 are very beautiful that is a way of
• 02:30 - 03:00 targeting women who had aspirations to be perfect housewives perfect mothers so the representations are a good way of targeting that audience the use of language you know they use the word women or women so many times in this advert that it is clear that that is who they're targeting so it's important to be able to see how they've used language to target that audience as well they use a lot of direct address so the use of the word you appears several times
• 03:00 - 03:30 within the advert so that direct mode of address is a good way of drawing in your target audience to the images they use would have appealed to the target audience the image of the lady appears to be a kind of subtle intertextual reference to perhaps a wartime propaganda poster featuring a character called Rosie the Riveter this adverts might have reminded many audiences in the 50s of that advert which home was quite famous within the 1940s and so
• 03:30 - 04:00 that's a good way of targeting those audiences in the 50s who may have remembered the Rosie the Riveter poster from the previous decade the woman's dress codes so her outfit her hairstyle and the curls with the headscarf actually reflects what was fashionable in the 1950s there were many famous film stars like Betty Grable and Veronica Lake who had hairstyles like this and so the representations would have reflected what was popular at the time the clothes
• 04:00 - 04:30 hanging on the washing line in the cartoon strip at the bottom of the advert helped us to identify the marital status and family situation of the target audience there are men's shirts and there are children's clothes on the washing line which suggests that the target audience are going to be women who are married in heterosexual relationships with children as was quite common for that age group in the 1950s there is an image of the washing machine in the top right-hand part of the adverts and this is also a really
• 04:30 - 05:00 good way of targeting that post-war 1950s audience because in the 1950s we have this sudden boom of consumerism rationing had ended people started to get more disposable income consumerism went through the roof and people started to be able to buy new technologies like washing machines that they've never had before and so the use of what would have been a very new and very fashionable item like a washing machine on the advert it's really good way of drawing in those audiences in the 1950s and in particular those audiences that aspired
• 05:00 - 05:30 to be fashionable or have the latest technologies and in order to impress all their friends there is a small stamp on the advert which says guaranteed by Good Housekeeping now Good Housekeeping is and was a magazine still exists today and obviously at women who are primarily based in the home and good housekeeping was seen as quite a aspirational opinion leader for audiences it was a magazine that was very well respected by women of
• 05:30 - 06:00 this particular demographic and so featuring it's kind of seal of approval or endorsement on the advert would help to attract women because they would think well if Good Housekeeping thinks this product it's good quality then it must be the advert uses a variety of written language in order to try and encourage the audience to take that preferred reading they use words like miracle trust like no other and they're constantly using those words to build up
• 06:00 - 06:30 this idea that tide is brilliant and that is very different to all other watch products on the market at the time so the use of the words is there to try and encourage the audience's to take that preferred reading that tide is a great product some audiences in the 1950s and some audiences in modern-day periods may have reacted in more of a negotiated or oppositional way to this advert for example those women who was starting to develop more feminist ideas as was happening in the 1950s and going
• 06:30 - 07:00 into the 60s may well have seen this advert and felt that perhaps it was a little sexist old-fashioned and they didn't want to be seen as Housewives loving their domestic chores some women may have felt it oversimplified their lives certainly modern audiences often look adverts like this and responding quite an oppositional way feeling as though is an incredibly sexist old-fashioned advert but the way audiences respond will entirely depend on their gender for
• 07:00 - 07:30 example whether they're male or female men might respond very differently to this advert and the cultural context they come from whether they do a lot of housework and the historical time period which the audience originates from as well if you're looking for audience Theory gerbner and his cultivation theory could be applied to this advert with the idea being that many women would have been exposed to a lot of adverts like this in the 1950s and so the effects of this advert and the effects of the media language and the
• 07:30 - 08:00 representations might have built up and up and up over time as they'd seen more and more adverts of women enjoying housework of perfect lifestyles of tide and so perhaps the effects on an audience could be seen to cultivate or develop over time depending on if they've seen a lot of other adverts that are similar gerbner might also believe that this advert is trying to cultivate or develop particular ideas and viewpoints so if you have a look at the advert there are lots of messages that
• 08:00 - 08:30 are repeated several times there's three separate bullet points where they reiterate over and over again that this is going to be the cleanest wash the whitest wash there's lots of repetition within the advert about how this is exactly what women want this is giving the audience giving women what they desire and so repeated messages throughout the advert hopefully in from Procter and Gamble's point of view are going to cultivate the idea in the audience's mind that tide is the best product on the market you can see that
• 08:30 - 09:00 these messages might have cultivated over time as well if you look at some of tides other adverts from the same decade the styles the messages the images are all very similar and so perhaps the effects and the meanings from these adverts might have cultivated over time to really enforce the idea with the audience that tide was the greatest product on the market for long another thing that you might want to know for this audiences section is how audiences might use media products
• 09:00 - 09:30 differently you might want to look at the users and gratifications theory for this it's not a set theory but it does come in useful for working out how audiences use products differently many audiences would still have looked at adverts for entertainment value it still would have seen quite quirky they haven't really got to the stage in the 1950s of being really bored by advertising as we often are now and so many audiences would have quite liked to look at these adverts and been quite entertained particularly in this advert
• 09:30 - 10:00 by the kind of nice brightly coloured images the cartoon strip lots of writing and it would have seemed perhaps quite exciting to some audiences other audiences might have used adverts like this for information about products there were very few places where women could get information about products to buy a lot of people didn't have televisions yet it wasn't very commonplace in the 1950s it was still quite a new technology and there was no internet obviously so if you wanted to
• 10:00 - 10:30 get information about new products that were out on the market or what different products might do for you then looking at the adverts and reading all this information and the small print would have been a good way to get information for an audience in the 1950s many audiences might also have looked at this product and been able to identify with the people in it so being able to identify maybe with their lifestyles or with what they wanted to achieve and they may have seen it as escapist and aspirational something that you know
• 10:30 - 11:00 perhaps perhaps audiences at the time would have looked at adverts and and used it to dream about having a better life some people may not have had a lot of money after the war and may have seen adverts like this and really enjoyed looking at them to dream of what they could buy when they had more money in the future