Representation Analysis

I think that representation in all mediums matters greatly. Whether it is in film or television, or even a TV commercial, you want to make sure groups who maybe are underrepresented or underappreciated can see something marketed towards them. It is how a company boosts sales, and gets an overall good reputation with the mass consumers. I have recently viewed two commercials though that I thought completely missed the mark. Not only in terms of showing off their product, but in grossly marginalizing their audience, and driving away a large group of people who may want to buy their product.

My Tide Detergent TV Commercial - Hoodies _ Cargo Shorts copy.mp4

 Here we have an ad for Tide, a company that makes laundry detergent and other cleaning products for her clothes. Throughout the commercial we see the mother talk about how her daughter wears nothing but hoodies, and from the colors and overall background of the home, we can see that visually the daughter contrasts with her surroundings. As the commercial goes on we can see in the mother's face and tone of voice that she is not extremely happy of the way her daughter dresses and acts, and I have to say that I think this commercial has done everything wrong. It acts as if the mother is not happy with her child being who she is, and that she would rather have her dress in pink and like Barbie dolls rather than building blocks. To me, the commercial makes a dangerous assumption that all little girls should act and play with the same things and they should all dress in bows and tutus. The fact of the matter is, not all kids are like that. Many girls like baggy clothes and darker colors, because it makes them feel good when they wear it. The mother in the commercial is seemingly respectful of her daughter's choice to wear and play with what she does, but it is off putting to a viewer to see. It also excludes that whole segment of women that like to wear clothes like this little girl. What tide is putting out is obviously supposed to be humorous, but to me it gets across a certain message. It may have that segment of consumers think "do they not want me using this product?" "Are they discriminating against this type of girl?". A product like Tide is something that should be used by men and women, and I feel like Tide on this specific commercial did an extremely poor job of getting that message across.

 

H&M Close the Loop – Sustainable fashion through recycled clothes

I personally think that this H&M add did a much better job of getting their point across. H&M is a clothing store that has options for men and women. Often times fashion advertisements try to appeal to either men or women, but what those adds don't realize, but H&M did, is that every single person on this Earth is different. It is like the commercial showed, sometimes women wear clothes for men, and sometimes men wear clothes for women. I think H&M showed that that is ok. We all have our different styles and fashions, and we should feel free to express that if we want. One statement I particularly found clever was when the narrator said "Mix red with pink". Often times it is said that with colors like those, they cannot be pulled off together, they must remain separate. I think the commercial did a good job of not only showing that that did not have to be the case, but the person wearing the two colors actually looked good in those colors. This one simple statement being made, really showed off that the person wearing it wasn't afraid to be questioned, she knew that it was an odd choice, but she was ok with it because it is what she liked. That is one part of the message that the commercial tried to get across. At the end of the video, we see that H&M thinks that no matter what we wear, we should recycle them for the betterment of the  Earth. They then show that they recycle any clothing item you left at the store into new clothes. I think this is a pretty smart tactic on their part, because they make everything we have seen so far connect to that one message. Something as small as clothing doesn't matter in comparison to the big picture out there, and I think unlike a lot of these self serving commercials, H&M realize that. H&M as a company obviously isn't a 100% selfless company, but I think it is pretty noble that they tried to tell their consumers about a good cause, and to maybe make them realize and try to help better the world. Overall, I think the commercial was much better done than the Tide commercial. It still wasn't perfect, as it made some generalizations about specific groups, men liking videogames being one example, but I thought that its message overall was much more consumer friendly to all ages, seniors included with the example they showed at the beginning. If I had to compare the two, then this one would be the winner.