Thinking about the Text Questions 1-4 and Summary of Advertisements R Us

1.) What insight does Melissa Rubin offer about the Coca-Cola ad she analyzes, and what EVIDENCE does she provide to support her analysis? Has she persuaded you to accept her conclusions-and if not, why not?

The insight Rubin offers about coke is how its advertisements reflect the life and culture associated with the "Mainstream" and attempts to influence or persuade consumers to associate the so called positive aspects of the culture with their product. She analyzes the components of the coke ad featured in the August 1950 Coca-Cola Bottler magazine such as the setting of the ad, placement of, 

and the specific characters, and the text within the ad. She uses the history of the time in which the ad was printed and general history of the company itself as evidence to support her claims about how it reflects the "mainstream" of its day.

2.) How does she incorporate historical context, and what does that information contribute to her analysis?

She uses the history of the time to show its influence on the culture and how the Coca-Cola company "..recognized the patriotism inspired by the war and wanted to inspire similar positive feelings about their product."

3.)Rubin's analysis is driven by this question: What can we learn about the culture in which a given ad is created by closely examining how that ad appeals to particular audiences? What other questions might you try to answer by analyzing an ad?              Who is the target audience? What is the goal/purpose of the ad?

4.) This Coca-Cola ad reflects the values of its era. Can you think of a contemporary ad that projects the values of the era we live in? How do the two ads compare?  An example of an ad that reflects the values of the era that we live in can for example be the Tide-to-Go commercial. For instance there is the value of tolerance, and inclusion of other people and cultures, civil rights etc. The Tide-to-Go commercial for instance shows a happy homosexual couple on their way to the church to get married to be stopped by a woman whom says she can’t let them get married that it wasn’t right, only to find out she was referring to the stain on the shirt of one of the grooms and promptly pulls out a Tide-to-Go pen and erases the stain. The ad presented a situation that is perceived one way; which was referring to the prejudice towards the homosexual community, and of course shows the current values of the day by the woman being perfectly accepting of the couple having no issue with them but instead the stain on the shirt. The two ads both the Coca-Cola print ad and the Tide-to-Go commercial reflected the current issues of the respective eras the ads exist. In example the civil rights movement of today reflected in the Tide commercial and the war effort in the Coke ad.

Summarize Robin’s Essay:

In Advertisements R Us, English major Melissa Rubin claims that advertisements reveal a lot about the society or culture in which they were made. She takes as an example an ad from the August 1950 Coca-Cola bottler magazine and analyzes the components of the magazine and includes a brief history of the Coca-Cola Company. Rubin begins by talking about how Coca-Cola came about in experimentation that took place in a pharmacy in 1886. She writes about how the growth paralleled America’s industrial age. Rubin continues by talking about how the company’s product became associated with “American optimism and energy” and the efforts of the Coca-Cola company to make its product available to “every man in uniform” for 5 cents. The circumstances that surround the culture at the time are told to give context to the setting which the Coca-Cola ad is set. The ad targets the men in uniform, as at the time the nation was in a war effort and many were drafted into the war effort. She brings the information around to support her conclusion that as a result of the ads effort to appeal to the mainstream culture at the time, that the ads themselves are an good look at the values of the era. Rubin also concludes that not only do they reflect the values at the time but may have helped to shape them as well.