Paper #1: Ad Analysis Paper
“Sex Sells” Coordinated Studies (Grinley & Clapp)
STUDENT SAMPLE PAPER
Pure + Clear for the White + Rich
The cover of the May 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living commands the reader to “Brighten
Your World!” The glossy magazine, which boasts an 87% female demographic, contains a plethora of
articles on how to do just that. From filling one’s garden with colorful spring flowers, to finding the best
pink lipstick for any skin tone, to covering everything with Martha Stewart Brand Loose Glitter, there are
instructions for everyone within its pages. Except, perhaps, not everyone. A third of the way into the
periodical, tucked between an article on how to make colorful Mother’s Day gifts and a recipe for
colorful lemonade, is an advertisement that distinctly lacks color. Pitching a new line of Palmolive dish
soap, the ad at first glance seems an innocent portrait of a happy family moment. A deeper look at the
scene gleans a more segregated sterility. By first breaking apart the ad through Frith’s methodology of
“undressing,” by looking past its surface and intended meanings to its ideological meaning, and from
there employing discourse analysis, Foucault’s theories and semiotic analysis, it becomes clear that
though the ad for aims to sell dish soap, its underlying ideology reinforces normative standards of
family, wealth and white privilege.
The surface meaning of the ad shows a young, Caucasian mother in a clean, sunlit kitchen with
her two young Caucasian children, both male. The boys have bowls of cereal in front of them and have
spoons playfully pressed to their noses. The kitchen itself is all white, with the exception of some green
dishes in the glass-front cabinets. A large bottle of Palmolive is superimposed on the right side of the
print, and the text to the right reads, “The clean is one reason to love it. Your family is the other.”
Underneath this copy, in smaller text, it reads, “No unnecessary chemicals, No heavy fragrances, Nonirritating dyes, No harmful residue left on dishes.” Underneath that, in text larger than the previous lines
it reads, “Love it for all the things that aren’t in it,” with a line of small pictures of dishes below it. The
advertiser’s intended meaning is clear: if you want to your children to be safe from harmful chemicals
on dishes, you should buy Palmolive’s product.
By employing discourse analysis, the first noticeable aspect of the ad is its lack of comparative
claims: it does not list the chemicals used in other brands and their harming effects. In fact, while the
tagline promises that the consumer will love it “for all the things that aren’t in it,” by simply looking past
the ad’s use of negative vocabulary, that there are “things” in it: chemicals, fragrances and dyes remain
in the soap. It doesn’t say which chemicals were still used and why; the consumer is simply expected to
take the ad’s word for it that those ingredients aren’t the bad ones. The little boys at the table are
behaving playfully, as boys are apt to do, but it is perfectly safe for them: there are no harmful toxins
left on the spoon that could permeate their tiny button noses. A mother reading this might not know
whether or not her current soap contains any possibly harmful ingredients, but she knows that she
wants her children to be safe; the ad’s persuasive, uninformative, discourse attempts to convince her
that this soap will do that.
Beyond trying to convince the viewer of the product’s safety, the ad is also playing on the
consumer’s desire to be “normal”; quite specifically, a mother’s desire. The ad is placed in a magazine
with a distinct female demographic, and more importantly, features a mother with her children, not a
father. It implies that it is still the woman’s job to do the dishes, and furthermore, insinuates that not
only should she do the dishes, but to be a good mother she should also be highly conscious of the type
of soap she uses. The woman in the ad is tall, thin and blonde, standing above her equally blonde
children, both bearing impish grins as they enjoy their bowls of cereal. The sparkling clean kitchen, the
shiny, glass front cabinets, and the well-dressed children all connote a more than modest wealth. In
Foucault’s idea of disciplinary power is the concept of nonobservance, or “what people have not
done…that is, a person's failure to reach required standards” (Gutting). The people pictured are
attractive, happy and despite the presence of young children, the kitchen is spotless; this ads seems to
ask, “Does your family look like this? Have you achieved this standard of living?” Though an ad for dish
soap may seem harmless is it triviality, Foucault’s theories on normalization argue that such procedures
“operate upon every aspect of our intimate lives” and what is a sunny morning, enjoying breakfast with
your children if not intimate? (Gill 64). The images shown in the ad reinforce a standard of privileged
normality that seems appealing and yet far-reaching for many; perhaps through the right dish soap, one
could get a little closer.
Beyond enforcing standards of what is normal for wealth and family, the abundance of white
seems to convey a standard for ethnicity as well. The white family and their white hair, the white
countertops, the white dishes, in this culture all connote with the idea of “purity;” a state promised on
the bottle. Frith argues that myths are “pre-existing, value-laden sets of ideas derived from a culture”
and to demystify this ad is to find the reinforcement of the wealth and privilege of the white (11). Were
the ad to undergo a race reversal, putting a black mother with her two black children, the story would
change. The bottle’s message of “pure + clear” would be opposed by the darkness of the people
enjoying its benefits, and in such a nice kitchen to boot. Even the sex of the children is important for this
facet; after all, boys are mischievous, explorative and often covered with mud, but pictured here they
are cherubic in their sterility. Were they switched out with female children, the level of cleanliness
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depicted might not be so pronounced. And more importantly, were the children black one might not be
able to see just how clean a child can be.
The only other color prominent in the ad, besides white, is green, a color that not only connotes
money, but also brings to mind the new societal norm of “being green” and environmentally friendly,
which incidentally is more expensive than the judgment-worthy state of just buying what you can afford.
It would seem that this ad is aimed not to bring in brand new consumers, but to inform current users of
a certain class who may want to up their status in the green revolution. Not only does the ad not flatly
inform of the product’s use, other small cues in the advertisement show that this product is using
interpallation to draw in its target consumer. Martha Stewart Living boasts their typical reader as “a
mother and a wife, affluent and educated,” and while the former two descriptions describe women
across ethnicity, the latter two are often used to describe Caucasian women, who generally have better
opportunity to become those thing (“Demographics”). The choice of dishes that line the bottom—a
stainless steel frying pan, expensive-looking pots and wine glasses (because at the end of the day, Mom
needs her sauce) – to the tagline, “Love it for all the things that aren’t in it,” all send a message of
differentiation. “Love it for all the things that aren’t in it”—namely, people browner and poorer than the
viewer. While said viewer may not feel conscious racial superiority, they may, however, unconsciously
appropriate the “ideological position” and thus further the divide between themselves and those less in
a lower class than they (Gill 50).
Analysis of the cultural signs throughout the advertisement reveals a divisive cultural message.
This isn’t to say that Palmolive and its users are inherently racist. It was, however, strategically placed in
a magazine that doesn’t proclaim itself as geared towards Caucasians, but quite obviously excludes any
person of color – the entire issue from which this advertisement was pulled contained just one person of
color. By first billing its everyday product as safer than the rest, and then by choosing to sell as a luxury,
Palmolive sends a message of exclusivity. Not everyone can afford to keep their children safe from
chemicals, but the elite can do so playfully, happily, and more attractively than the rest.
Works Cited
“Demographics.” Martha Stewart: Advertiser’s Toolkit. 22 April 2009 <http://www.marthastewart.com/group-C>
“Undressing the Ad: Reading Culture in Advertising” Frith, Katherine T. Undressing the Ad. New York: Peter Lang Publishing,
1998
Gill, Rosalind “Analyzing Gender in Media Texts”. Gender in the Media. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007
Gutting, Gary. “Michel Foucault.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
21 April 2009 < http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/>
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