Super Bowl Tide Commercial Ad And The Super Bowl Tide Advertisements

Tide is the most popular liquid-detergent in the United States that was introduced in 1946 and manufactured by American consumer goods corporation, Procter & Gamble. This report will be analysing and comparing two Tide Advertisements, the recent 2018 Super Bowl Tide Commercial Ad and a 1950s Tide Print Ad, for their purpose, audience, context, conventions and language.

The first advertisement, the 2018 Super Bowl Tide Commercial was a 1-minute TV Commercial sponsored by Procter & Gamble and crafted by the advertising agency, Saatchi Saatchi NY. The video was played during an ad break of the 2018 Super Bowl to an audience of over 100 million people. The ad is endorsed by actor David Harbour, who is known for his role in the popular Netflix

Contrastingly, in the 1950s Tide Print Ad, the target audience was young newly-wed middle-class women who were white and had a young family. This was connotated by the advertisement as it uses a white woman, and by having men’s and children’s clothing on the washing line. Correspondingly, due to the era, there is a significant lack of diversity and representation in the advertisement, as only white middle-class women are being targeted. The advert is aiming to portray the “perfect lifestyle” and only shows women of the white race, connotating that the product isn’t suited towards women of colour. Since the advert shows no representation to any other race or class of women and only presents one kind, it creates this stigma around white, middle-class women being the best and exclusively having the “perfect lifestyle” with Tide. In the 2018 Super Bowl Tide Commercial, using the TV actor David Harbour from the popular Netflix Original Series, Stranger Things was intentional, as the largest age demographics for Stranger Things and Tide are very similar, with 31% of people aged between 18-29 having watched every episode of Stranger Things and 23% of people aged between 30-44, compared to Tide’s target demographic which is

In doing so, the audience will be thinking when watching every other ad during the ad breaks, whether it is a Tide Ad or not. Since Tide are the leading laundry detergent brand in the United States, the ad was aimed to boost brand likability and to maintain market share, rather than to be informative and hard selling, and in addition, the use of a hashtag, #TideAd, shown at the end of the commercial is extremely powerful as most people within their target age demographics are on social media which will help to spread their advertisement and help them connect to a larger global audience. Alternatively, the purpose of the 1950s Print Tide Ad is to convey to the audience that by buying this product their life would become easier and their clothes would be a lot, cleaner and brighter. The advertisement glamorises the idea of being a housewife and portrays the product to young women connotating that it would help them to have a “perfect” lifestyle by exclusively using Tide. Through using bright, primary colours, the 1950s Print Tide Ad which appear simple and basic, implies to the audience that deciding which washing powder to use is as simple as the colours on the advert, to entice the audience and make the product seem exciting and new and to connotate the positive associations that the producers want the