No more tears

No more tears

I was going through stores of periodicals looking for a meaningful ad but I could not find one ad that was different from the rest, they were all the same. I was searching for an ad that was giving details and has legitimate marketing goal rather than giving clouds of false images that has nothing to do with the product its promoting. Eventually, I gave up on periodicals, and then I started web searching. In few minutes, I come across one ad that stood out from the rest of the ads that I saw previously; the ad is Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo advertisement.

Johnson & Johnson is a super brand manufacturer of consumer goods such as cosmetics, baby & family products, Medical devices, diagnosis and pharmaceuticals. The company was formed by Robert Wood Johnson I, James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson in 1886. The company produced its first products in 1886 and incorporated in 1887. The company is now publically owned and has billions of dollars of stock in NYSE. The company has its head quarter at Brunswick in New Jersey and branches worldwide. Johnson & Johnson is one of the most trusted family brands in the country historically. Since the company produces variety of goods it franchised its product making departments to expand the company. In 1950’s the company produced one of the most successful slogan of all time in American marketing history and that is the baby shampoo advertisement “No more tears from soap in the eyes” slogan.

Advertisers of the modern day run a complicated, tricky, mind-boggling advertisements but this has caused the ravage of the advertisement industry morally. However, some ads send clear legitimate informational-minded slogans though they are driven from the old-fashioned/classical ads; one of those is the “no more tears” slogan of the Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo advertisement of the present day. I found this ad on word-press blogger’s site.

Here the ad depicts a baby face that is in bathroom and ready to have a shower. The baby appears to be in a large bowl sink full of water and the picture shows the formation of large shampoo foam on the baby’s head. Behind the picture, there is a wall that seems to be a hand crafted and black in color. The child is in the center of the picture with a big baby smile on his/her face while leaning forward toward the camera. The child’s lower part is submerged and you can only see his/her upper part. The baby has a blonde and wavy hair that gives the baby a natural color in the picture.

On the left side of the picture, there is the logo of the company and below outside of the picture frame they show the shampoo container which looks like Listerine plastic bottle and the price which is “59c” (remember that this ad is old). Below the center of the ad’s picture, there is a text that say, “Will not burn or irritate eyes like normal shampoo.” “Gets hair Gloriously Clean in the pleasant way ever.”

So far what the ad did is the combinations of the Aristotle rhetorical appeals, the pathos, logos and the ethos. Remember we are talking about an ad that is being used for decades. The character/pathos appeals are what make ads to be very distinguishable from the rest. If an average person could make sense of what the ad is for then you know the ads character is well set.

Part of the ads character is smiling baby face, this is universal appeal because humans tend to appeal open faces, moreover, when it is a baby face, you will absolutely show affection towards that face. There is another hook in the baby’s character, remember we said the baby is leaning forward? The baby is leaning forward, because the ad shows us that the baby is responding to our look on the ad, secondly the baby is saying to us give me hug or pursuing us to pay the product and thirdly it is maybe the baby is leaning towards the shampoo because the baby likes the shampoo. One more clue is that the ad did not show or classify what kind of gender the baby is because they want the ad to appeal to all genders not a particular sex so; this makes the ad a populist though the ad portrays a Caucasian baby face not other groups. Without doubt all we mentioned appeal to our emotions to tend to be connected human feelings. This paves the way the logic part of the advertisement which is getting the targeted potential buyer to buy the product.

The ad’s slogan and text were “no more tears from the soap in the eyes”, Gets hair Gloriously Clean in the pleasant way ever” “will not burn or irritate the eyes like normal shampoo.” All this is direct appeal to those consumers who fed up with the drops of shampoo-laced water to irritate their babies’ eyes and make them feel uncomfortable while giving them bath showers. If you are a parent or a guardian of a child you are very much concerned your children’s well being and when you observe every now and then your children’s reactions with the non-soap free shampoo, you will not buy a shampoo that will make or cause your baby’s eyes to irritate if you could find Soap free, hypoallergenic, and dermatologist tested shampoo. Moreover, the ad says “gets hair gloriously clean” which means this shampoo will clean or hygiene more than adult shampoos. Children’s skin or hair is delicate and this ad says this product is particularly manufactured for babies. This gives confidence that most of people luck when they want to shop something. It is persuasive but at the same time gentle. “No more tears” is the nuke part of the ad that somehow manages to communicate our unconscious part. These three words look very simple on our eyes and easy to read, but they contain very deep message that our inner feelings will pick up and translate to us instantly and that what makes the ad inducing, persuasive and emotionally appealing. Today, if you pick up an ad or watch a commercial on the television you will see most of the time that the content of the advertisement and the product have less or no connection at all but the slogan or the words that they use to promote the product will leave a long lasting writing on your mind or make some sort of connection between you and the product. This is the new trend of advertisement and most companies do run this form of advertisement in present day.

These companies claim to be communicating with us psychologically without expressing the pros and cons of the product. Advertisers manage to go around everything by using celebrates, a provocative images and designs that have nothing to do with the product. Anyway, not all advertisement send this kind of image, one example is, “no more tears for soap in the eyes” slogan, this slogan represent an advertisement that is ethically and morally just. The slogan is appealing to us directly without manipulating or exaggerating the meaning of the advertisement and this should be the goal of all advertisers.