Over the course of the last eighty years, countries have warred and made peace; boundaries have shifted; rights have been won and lost; and regimes have come and gone. Though the face of the world has changed and new technologies have altered how many people communicate, travel, work, play, and learn, the basic minds and bodies of human beings remain the same. Advertisers today can play to much the same consumer concerns and needs as they did decades ago. For instance, Kotex employs techniques in its North American 2007 advertisements that closely match those used in the same company’s ads from 1927: Both ads construct similar appeals to the contradictory human desires for freedom and complete security.
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In this 1927 Canadian Home Journal ad [1], the “freedom” half of the appeal comes through clearly in the slogan – “Active Women of Today are Free” –, as complimented by the illustration below. Here, an “active woman of today” greets her friends, a tennis racket tucked under her arm; her friends hold golf clubs. Kotex products, the ad suggests, have “freed” these women to play hard — physically, actively –, unhampered by the “handicap of yesterday’s hygienic worries.” The automobile behind the central woman reinforces this message, implying that the woman has driven herself to this meeting. This suggests her independence and modernity, as she can move fast without having to rely on male drivers to get her where she wants to go. At the same time, the text and bubbled images pointing out the advantages of Kotex products assure the consumer that the product offers “protection that is absolute,” a “true protection” far-removed from the “insecurity” and “uncertainty” of older products. Easy-to-use and obtainable without “embarrassment,” the product improves, the ad claims, both physical and mental health. A woman using Kotex is a woman freed from all social and mental concerns, a woman “free” but unhampered by any of the risks that come along with freedom.
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This ad from a 2007 issue of More magazine employs the same techniques, assuring women that, with Kotex products, they may lead active lives, taking risks and moving fast, while still remaining secure and comfortable. Here, the ad also suggests freedom, modernity, adventurous activity, and movement through an implicit link with automobiles and driving. Take the product for a “test drive,” the text urges, establishing the connection further with the phrases “designed to hug your curves” and “shift over to a great fit.” Like the 1927 ad’s active woman, driving her automobile out to meet friends for golf and tennis, the woman implied by the 2007 ad travels at speed, ready to take life’s curves fast. At the same time, the 2007 Kotex consumer, like the 1927 consumer, need not worry about the risks and discomforts associated with freedom – the Kotex pad provides “comfortable, secure protection,” a “gentle” fit “ergonomically designed” just for “you,” the customer. The pure white background of the ad reinforces the message visually, just as did the clean, friendly sunny day pictured in the 1927 ad. The 2007 consumer may, metaphorically, zoom along the pristine roads of life without fear of obstacles and muck.
Though eighty years separate these two advertisements, the appeals they employ differ very little. In both 1927 and 2007, Kotex seeks to lure consumers by promising total freedom and complete security. While suggesting Kotex feminine pads can provide women with the freedom to take risks and embrace modern mobility, Kotex’s ads also hold that Kotex pads can shield women from all of the dangers of insecurity, uncertainty, and discomfort that risks almost always imply. Judging from the techniques used in these ads, despite great changes in the world at large, the conflicting human desires for freedom and safety, risk-taking and certainty, have remained constant over the past eighty years.
[1] Duke University Digital Scriptorium Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. Ad*Access. Duke University. 7 Nov. 2007 <http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/dynaweb/adaccess/@Generic__CollectionView>.
