Dawn Saves Wildlife

The advertisement I choose to analyze was the commercial “Dawn Saves Wildlife”. The commercial uses emotional appeal by showing baby ducks, baby seals, and baby begins covered in oil. In the beginning the tone is depressing and gloomy until the animals are washed cleaned using dawn soap making the tone happier. As soon as the tone changes dawn uses that opportunity to remind the audience they can help save wildlife by purchasing their product. For every bottle of special edition dawn bought, $1 will be donated to the save the wildlife conservation. Images used make the commercial extremely heart tugging. Anyone with a heart cannot help but be attracted to the ad and possibly feel the urge to go out and by a bottle or two of dawn liquid soap.
In the commercial the only words used besides lyrics from the background song are “thousands of animals caught in oil spills have been saved using dawn, now your purchase can help. Tough on grease yet gentle.” That statement alone shows the advertising company is trying to create an emotional appeal. If you are not convinced by that alone look at the choice of music used. “I got troubles oh, but not today cause they gonna wash away. This old heart gonna take them away.” The song is “Wash Away” by Joe Purdy.
The advertisement did not clearly state a target audience. Going by the traditional gender roles, it could be said women over the age of 20 may be the intended target audience. Traditional gender rules portray the woman to be a “house wife” and more emotional than men. The duties of a house wife are to cook, clean, and tend after their children. If women are doing the cooking and cleaning, it only makes sense for the advertisement to be geared toward them. By using emotional appeal in the commercial women are automatically drawn into it and more likely to go out and purchase the product.
The background takes place in what seems to be a science lab where animals are being shown being bathed in dawn liquid soap. No faces are shown, only the hands with gloves that are washing the animals. The only other shot used in the commercial is a picture of the dawn special edition bottle of soap.
Wildlife animals are clearly the theme to the dawn commercial. Throughout the commercial images of animals are shown, whether they are shown covered in oil or recently cleaned.
The item being advertised is dawn special edition liquid soap. Dawn created 3 different bottles of the special edition soap. One bottle is blue with a picture of a white seal on the bottle; the other is orange with a picture of a baby duck; the last bottle is green with a picture of a penguin. All 3 bottles say have the same words printed on the bottle; 1 bottle= $1 to save wildlife. The colors of the bottles are vibrant version of earth tone colors.
Over all dawn is doing a good thing by donating to wildlife conservation efforts but many people don’t know in order for their dollar to be contributed to wildlife conservation they must go onto dawn’s website. When on the website the consumer must register their bottle. Although they require the consumers to do so, they do not clearly state that in their advertisements or commercial. Dawn also states on their website up to $500,000 will be donated. What happens to the dollar consumers are promised to be donated after $500,000? Special edition dawn soap is misleading its consumers by not clearly stating the details.