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Ad Analysis

In the 1950’s, sugar consumption was on the decline, and a new calorie conscious fad was sweeping America. The sugar industry began to see people consuming less of their product, so they decided to use propaganda to put a healthy new spin on sugar. Domino Pure Cane Sugar launched an effective ad campaign doing just that. One of their advertisements in particular swayed the general public by using glittering generalities, profiting on a calorie conscious yet unknowledgeable population, and appealing to the American woman’s ethos.

Donna Cross’s term “Glittering Generalities” describes a marketing ploy that uses virtue words to persuade the public to agree with the advertiser’s message, without examining the evidence. In this ad the focus is very positive, pointing out the “fewer calories,” praising the Domino consumer as “smart,” promising they’ll stay “slim and trim,” and even incorporating the word “diet,” so as to subconsciously associate sugar to staying thin. This advertisement wants them to take pride in their intelligence and diet conscious ways for buying Domino, without questioning what the public thought they already knew about sugar. Assuming everyone will be so blinded by all of these virtue words and phrases, they will have no choice but to use this product. Especially for the time period, this ad was effectively manipulative in its overly positive tone.

Even the most conscious consumer can be fooled by being told everything they want to hear, with a mild dose of argumentum ad populum. In the essay “Propaganda: How Not to Be Bamboozled,” Cross states: “People are bamboozled mainly because they don’t recognize propaganda when they see it” (150). She is saying that people take things at face value, not wanting to dig deeper, while assuming they’re informed enough not to be tricked. With the right words, anyone can be manipulated into agreeing without contemplating the validity of the claims. Anyone, no matter how informed, can be fooled by propaganda. Everyone has an innate desire to belong, no matter how rebellious against the norms of society they may feel, in some way or another it’s ingrained into them. They simply can’t help it, it’s a part of everyone and everything.

Advertisements today are just as effective in their manipulation, but that’s because advertisers have evolved with the ever changing times. The modern world has become slightly more informed and, perhaps, less gullible. The 1950’s were pre internet, before basic information was right at their fingertips, so consumers were more apt to believe what they were told. In recent times, fast food chain restaurants have been advertising their new menus with less calories, and natural ingredients. Instead of taking their word for it, people have taken to the internet; looking up ingredients and doing their own research. Advertising isn’t so simple anymore, something can’t be made up out of the blue and announced to the public as the truth. It doesn’t take a computer genius to get on the internet and do some simple research. Although the information is there, not everyone seeks it out, and many still want to be told what to buy. That’s most likely a symptom of that ingrained need to belong, and be part of a community.

Since dieting and calorie counting was such a relatively new fad, information on it was even more limited. Domino truly capitalized on this ignorance by stating things like “3 teaspoons of sugar contains less calories than your half grapefruit!” Although this is a factual statement (depending on the size of grapefruit), 3 teaspoons of sugar do not equal an actual breakfast, like a half grapefruit does. No one is considering that though, because they’re still being blinded by those virtue words. One may be slimmer and trimmer with that 3 teaspoons of sugar in their tea, but they will be starving. People were inclined to believe claims such as the “energy lift” they promise, never mind the inevitable crash that will soon follow a sugar high. The American public didn’t know, and didn’t care. They wanted more: more energy, a slimmer waist, and more intelligence. This advertisement was promising them the moon, and with sugar none the less! Sugar is delicious, it doesn’t take much persuasion to convince someone to consume it. Especially with all of the health benefits this ad promised them, combatting the negative effects they formally associated with sugar. Cholesterol and heart disease are very real consequences of too much sugar. Consumers buying into this advertisement’s claims should have stuck to what they thought they knew, because they were right. Sugar is not the healthy substitute they were searching for.

Advertisers know what they are doing, nothing is unintentional. Everything has to be carefully calculated because the future of a product, and jobs, depend on it. So advertisers will pull out all the stops in order to manipulate consumers. In an official document from the sugar industry, “A Suggested Program for the Cane and Beet Sugar Industries, October 1942,” the author is unknown, but the need to persuade the American consumer that sugar is not only a staple, but a necessity, is obvious. It states: “…the public should be taught the importance of the correct usage of their sugar rations, i.e. the necessity for sugar in the diet of growing children and active adults” (8). It also says, “…we must exert every effort to see that the low sugar diet of wartime does not become the habit in the peacetime to come” (8). Perhaps the sugar industry themselves were misinformed on the importance, or lack thereof, of sugar in the diet. After all, the times were different, and information was less available. They do seem extremely driven to push sugar onto the American people, demanding they “exert every effort,” but claiming that it’s important people know how necessary it is to the diet. They certainly put effort into the Domino ad campaign, which followed approximately a decade after this document was written.

This advertisement also played into insecurities, by appealing to the ethos of the American people -specifically American women. Although everyone was becoming wrapped up in the new diet fad, it was aimed mostly at women. Women (more so than men) losing weight and being in shape, tends to be considered more important by society’s standards. So this ad fed off of women who wanted to be desirable, and stay that way. The man in the ad reinforces this by commenting on sugar effecting her weight. It also hints at intelligence, saying its “smart to stay slim and trim.” So the woman could, theoretically, be everything she wants to be with this product, smart AND thin; she couldn’t ask for anything more.

In the article “Jesus is a Brand of Jeans,” Kilbourne states that “we are surrounded by hundreds, thousands of messages every day that link our deepest emotions to products, that objectify people and trivialize our most heartfelt moments and relationships. Every emotion is used to sell us something” (467). Ads are out to get the consumer emotionally, they have every intention of tugging at a few heartstrings to sell their products. In this domino ad, they definitely took aim at women’s insecurities, and their need to feel attractive; it’s an emotion that is still deeply imbedded into society. Women will always feel pressure to look a certain way, and advertisements will always capitalize on that.

For the time, this ad may have seemed borderline progressive. The woman is correcting the man on his comment about her sugar intake in regards to her weight. Make no mistake though, this ad is nothing but condescending to women. His stance for instance, is aggressive. He’s standing over her with his hand firmly planted on her shoulder, while making comments about her weight reduction. There’s nothing progressive about this situation.

This ad seems to be directed at women, in part, due to its use of colors; pastels are typically considered more feminine. Pink, light blue, yellow, and mint were all popular colors for the 50’s, but they also give the ad a softer look; presumably to make it slightly more appealing to women. Another reason this ad seems designed for women, is the fact that it’s a product primarily used in the kitchen. For the time, it was more common for a woman to be in the kitchen than a man, and those stereotypes are still very prevalent today. So there is no reason this product would have been marketed towards men, when women were the ones thought to be doing most of the cooking, and subsequently purchasing the grocery items. Usually the men weren’t the ones doing the shopping, so the need to sell them on sugar seems unnecessary. The “energy lift,” doesn’t seem gender specific, but since the ad does seem to be geared towards women, this newfound energy could really help get things done around the house; at least that’s what it seems to imply. All of the female related gender stereotypes are present and accounted for in this advertisement.

Domino Sugar made an ad that was effective in its intention of shifting people’s opinion on the nutritional value of sugar. Playing on insecurities, stereotyping women, and bombarding the consumer with positive “facts” really helped push their product onto a newly diet crazed America. They were lacking resources to know any better, and ate it up. Unfortunately, it cannot simply be said that ‘those were the times,’ because nothing much has changed. Women are still objectified, and people are still gullible; ready to fall for the next persuasive new advertisement.

It seems as though advertising will always be effective, so long as people remain consumer happy. Many like to be told what to buy, it gives them a sense of community and belonging to see these advertisements, and know they’re buying the same products, and happiness, that their family and friends are buying. Maybe someday people will be able to purchase things because of a well informed decision they came to on their own, but it’s hard with all of the manipulation being pushed into their faces every day. Perhaps some things will never change, after all history certainly has a way of repeating itself.

http://www.motherjones.com/documents/480900-a-suggested-program-for-the-cane-and-beet-sugar