Sunday 3 February 2013

So Clean! The influences on Lever's Sunlight Soap ads.

 

 
William Lever was the founder of Sunlight Soap, and was the man who turned advertising around with his addition of art in advertising to a country where ads were predominantly copy.
 
 
 
Lever's influence for these ads mostly came from society and culture at the time. His ads were firstly inspired by art, such as the picture above, which would have been percieved as modern at the time. He chose art works depicting women mostly, wearing white materials or around white materials and also young children.  He chose these as having white coloured, clean materials and clothing at that time would have been a sort of luxury. Also, with culture at the time placing women in the home as housewives, women would have been the primary target market for the soap.
 
 
Lever's use of children in the ads was influenced by the high infant mortality rate at the time, he also brings connotations of youth, life and purity through their use.
 
 
During the first world war, Lever's ads were inspired by imperialism and Britishness, as can be seen in the above picture. The ad is also similar to war time propaganda, which would have been very popular at this time.


1 comment:

  1. Some good contextual analysis here - I think you missed the opportunity to include a semiotic analysis too - to show how you can apply an analytical vocabulary.

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