Monday, October 28, 2013

Ad #4: Lifebuoy Soap


Critical Analysis:

The target audience of this advertisement is mothers ages 22-29. The ad is appealing to the mothers in this age group because of the picture and the copy. The picture shows young children, and the copy describes the types of activities young children do as well as the kinds of trouble they are prone to get into.The copy in this advertisement makes it a particularly successful form of persuasion. The first paragraph describes the typical young child-- messy, adventurous, and reckless. Paragraph two highlights the specific attributes of Lifebuoy soap that make it so powerful and appealing to children. The next paragraph is a description of what the children would be like after being scrubbed with Lifebuoy soap, and the fourth reinforces the idea that washing with Lifebuoy means safe hands. The copy in this advertisement tells a story. The children with "grimy hands" and "smudgy faces" were transformed into kids with "velvety skin" and "bewitching curls", all because of Lifebuoy soap.This advertisement utilized popular culture by focusing on overall health. In this time period, people were becoming more and more concerned with their health and hygiene. People were very worried about cleanliness. Lifebuoy soap played off of this societal concern be creating a "health soap" who's "invigorating cleanness" you can feel.

Comprehensive Analysis:

This is an advertisement for Lifebuoy Health Soap. This ad was published in 1925 in New York Journal American. The specific advertising method used for Lifebuoy Health Soap is the Preemptive Claim. The creators of this ad centered the whole advertisement around the idea that Lifebuoy was a "Health Soap". They took an aspect of virtually every soap and made it central to their advertisement. All soaps disinfect and cleans and contributes to a person's health. All soap is "health soap". This advertisement also utilized the symptom-cure technique. The advertisement makes non-issues such as "grimy hands" and "smudgy faces" into major health risks, and advertises the product as a remedy for the problem. Soap is important to people in this time period because of the growing emphasis people placed on good hygiene and personal cleanliness, like I stated above. There are no stereotypes demonstrated in this advertisement.

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