Too often. Too, too often men and women are objectified and socialised in the media. Women as sexualised objects and men as sex predators. In our digital world, we have adapted well to rapid change, and so has advertising. Advertising likes to shock us in order to grab our attention and as a result, the adverts we see today will be more shocking to achieve its purpose. What if different stereotypes existed? What if they didn't exist at all? I have created an advertisement that builds on the stereotypical domesticated mother figure and have explored how this role can be empowered to make women feel the strength they need in society.
If we look back at where success comes from in ads designed for similar products, we notice that the predominant colours used in the majority of cleaning ads are red and blue. Comfort aims empower women so colour scheme becomes extremely vital to the ad. Blue sells a peaceful kind of lifestyle, but red on the other hand in is much more passionate. It draws out feelings of love, which tie together feelings between our audience (pause) and our product. In our ad for Comfort we have selected a red colour theme in order to have a more dominant effect.
You will remember in the the 2011 Mr. Clean ad, blue was used to block out the harshness of the caption, “get back to the job that really matters”. This caption was forceful and domesticated women to cleaning and looking after children. We want to use colour symbolism to take this domestication away instead of enforcing it. The symbolism of the colour blue calmed down the forcefulness of the ad, but maintained a level of peace and comfort that the home brings. We on the other hand want to establish something greater than just comfort at home… by bringing out the importance of a women’s role in this environment. This is why we will use red as this is a dominant, powerful colour, that will be associated with your brand.
THE TRANSCRIPT
Me:
Women today are activists … They want to be empowered and they want to be important. Comfort can do this for them … I am here today to show you how through the Maxwell Advertising Agency. The aim of our ad is to create a strong, supportive female character who is needed in the home because she is established to be important. The target audience are middle class women who need to feel as though they are worth something more than their generalised social position. Women who are mothers want to have a strong image at home with their children. Don’t they?
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Hamburger Helper is another ad you will remember from 2012. This ad used a red colour theme, and chose to use a lot less blue. The use of these colours proved to be effective because it focused on creating a nurturing atmosphere … something our audience really likes. The colours create a strong relationship between the mother and the daughter, which is important for the audience.
Although we use similar colour themes to other ads, we differ in campaign approach. The campaign title is… “she is the mum you want to be”, which works to create a thriving relationship between mothers and daughters. It associates this product with a supportive mother figure and how she is able to look after her home and her children well. Our ad is selling a lifestyle… Our ad is selling power… The relationship is seen as important because it is strong and significant. Tell me you do not like to see this kind of relationship in your life. We love children (slight pause) and so does our audience, which makes this an excellent approach for our campaign.
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The image used in the ad we are creating links to this idea because it shows how the daughter is looking up to her mother… a mother who is also using the Comfort product. The symbolism in the daughter looking up towards her mother represents undying awe and enduring fascination, which empowers our target audience because they want to be good at protecting their children. This idea is also highlighted in the clothing choice as the two female characters are wearing similar floral clothes. This further establishes a symbolic meaning because using this product becomes something that girls want to see in their mothers and are something they are proud of.
The strong relationship between the mother and the daughter is also demonstrated in the physical layout of our piece. This strength appeals to our audience because men enjoy the comfort of having a woman look after their children as well as their home. The wonder in the child is reinforced by motherly protection, and makes the audience not only feel needed by their child... but also by their man.
Look at the man in this photo. He is taking on the domesticated role by holding the cleaning items, and our target audience likes this because for starters, the face is very humorous. However, going deeper than this, they enjoy seeing themselves in a more superior position in comparison because it empowers them and breaks away from social stereotypes.
This text is white, which is the same colour as the cloud around the Comfort logo. It makes it much easier to read because all the text is following a similar colour theme. The text has also been written above the image to shed the light of superiority onto this idea for our audience.
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Going back to our campaign title, I would like to remind you how different this approach is to other products. Other ads focus on how a women is good at cleaning. Our ad uses the significance of a family relationship to build on the power and importance a woman can bring to her home using Comfort. The syntax of “she is the mum you want to be”, is so important because first of all the pronoun, ‘you’ is very direct. It makes the audience feel as though we are directly speaking to them and makes them feel unique. ‘Wants to be’ is simple but implies a journey from one place to another, and is a reference for how the daughter is willing to go that extra mile to be like her mother. It highlights how women are not cleaning tools... they are role models.
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(pause)
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Thank you so much for listening, and I hope you will appreciate the confidence in this pitch to empower women. I will take any questions you may have and once again thank you for your time.
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