OUGD401 - Creative Advertising

Creative Advertising
A look into the history of the soap franchise.

• Key points in the historical narrative presented
• The contexts: historical, political, economical. modern advertising emerged internationally
• Traces how large scale colour printing technology developed in the 19th century
• Lever brothers
• Integration of art and technology
• The beginning by Wight - Robin Wight : '118 118' & 'The futures bright the future Orange.'
• William Hesker Lever 'WHL'1851-1925 : Lever bros
• Bill Bernbatch 1911-32 first to combine copy writers & advertisers
• Ubiquitos brand
• WHL - first british tycoon/ born 1851
• sun light vision, lux to lynx/ LB founded 1885 james darcy and william hesker lever
• 1851 great exhibition- colour print on larger scale
• Hegarty, 2011 pg 7

Pre packaging

• 1860 cereal brands found how to6 print/ fold/ fill boxes mechanically
• WHL was the first to advertise extensively pre pack soap adding the value of the brand

Ad boom

• Ad's aided by tax cuts on papers 1855-1861

Print boom

• 1890 technology enabled contempary paintings to be reproduced
• Height of the empire
• First multinational adverts did 1885
• Contemporary art - So clean used signs such as : White, linen, children, copyright - lever
• The signs connoted a sense of pure, delicate and innocence
• Alice in wonderland - exhibition at the Tate modern, Lewis Carroll  infant mortality rate, children was a popular subject, new, blessing, purity, life.
• "A dress rehearsal" -subject matter, wedding dress, modified, passed down, family, passing beauty secrets.
• Emotional strategy
• WHL Selected and presented contemporary art with a powerful and desired message. Interesting and innovative way.
• Imagery and entertainment
• Text based adverts

Advertising advancements

• Unileve/ AXE - "confidence is what teens lack"
• Online game - audience interaction
• Campaigns involving the audience more
• Creative agencies sold spaces in newspapers for adverts
• Innovative soap event: washing competition at lake Geneva 1889 
• Royal endorsement from 1892 for the soap company
• Wrapper promotions to win prizes
• Capture the children through parents to get free gifts
• WHL spent 2 million in the first two decades of making soap
• Art direction: A vision to disguise slavery, palm oil, plantol depict tropical
• First worldwide ECD: collaboration of creativity
• First ambient: innovative bus and telephone stations, choosy about papers, not left wing
• "Sunlight soap" Many early adds suggested soap would save from drudgery
• Working class
• Lever bro's used different international agencies

Final thoughts

• Domestic and imperial markets, royal, national and imperial imagery
• To civilize/ empire: soap, cigarettes, chocolates and fabric
• Discrepancy theory: self and ideal image
• Admass advocates: economic liberals
• Robin wight