OMO advert: blog tasks

 

1) What year was the advert produced?

1955

2) How were women represented in most adverts in the 1950s? Add as much detail to this answer as you can as these are the social, cultural and historical contexts we will need to write about in the exam.

Women were represented as feminine, doing housework and in makeup with neat hair and dress despite being at home. It was like this because during ww2 men were at war and women took male jobs, now they want to turn it back.

3) How does the heading message ('OMO makes whites bright') and the style of the text promote the product?

It is the slogan, it is catchy and has the white speech bubble like thing behind it. It looks like a comic which was popular at the time, and also resembled radio in a way but also at the same time looked part of the product. 

4) Analyse the mise-en-scene in the advert (CLAMPS): how is costume, make-up and placement of the model used to suggest women's role in society?

Neatly done hair, smiling, dress, heavy makeup suggests that their role is to always look their best at home and outside. 

Lighting is bright and seems natural, maybe suggesting women must be natural or outside doing laundry.

Person in  the image is a woman, who is smiling and has an expression of awe while putting up laundry. this suggests that she is impressed and happy with the product, suggest that cleaning products make women happy.

Props are the laundry and the product itself, everyday items, suggesting you must have it and is a great gift for women.

setting is not obvious but it is suggested she is outside doing laundry.

5) Why is a picture of the product added to the bottom right of the advert?

So that women knew what they were looking for when buying products.

6) What are the connotations of the chosen colours in this advert - red, white and blue?

Connotes to the union Jack flag colours, success after war.

7) How does the anchorage text use persuasive language to encourage the audience to buy the product? Give examples.

"Millions of women" exaggeration of how many women is actually buying the product. Is to do that to pressure women into buying it. 

8) What representation of women can be found in this OMO advert? Make specific reference to the advert and discuss stereotypes.

They are feminine and they are responsible for cleaning in the house and excited at cleaning products, which was the norm in 1950s and is proved by the feminine makeup, hair and clothes and overall how they act which makes them appear weak. 

9) What is the preferred reading for this advert - what did the producers of the advert want the audience to think in 1955?

the preferred reading is that this cleaning product is not any other cleaning product but makes whites more brighter than just clean and that women must do laundry and do house work. This is very likely because back then it was commonly expected that women should be housewives rather than breadwinners. Perhaps they still expected women to be happy with this product as a gift?

10) What is the oppositional reading for this advert - how might a modern audience respond to this text and the representation of women here?

That men made this to feed their broken ego and to put women in their place. Or to try make women do house work again and keep up their femininity as doing "male" jobs is masculine, perhaps they were worried about feeling emasculated if women did jobs better than men. Modern audience wouldn't be very happy with how the advert only include  women with jobs that require cleaning only, as it is now more commonly known that both genders clean laundry. In the advert they include how "millions of women" uses this product, we know this is a tactic to pressure people into buying this product.