Listerine’s Power of Killing Invisible Germs The advertisement that I chose was the Listerine magazine ad, produced in the year 1959 by the Lambert Pharmacal Company. I found this ad to be most interesting because I did not know that Listerine was originally used for killing off the common cold and sore throat. The company made a number of Listerine ads to prove that the product worked on people through years of testing. Although the ad is in plain black and white, it offers a lot of significant claims as to why Listerine is a worthy product for people to purchase in contribution to their everyday health.
The multiple parts of the ad such as, the picture, statistics, and summary provide proof of the product’s effectiveness to its host. More in particular, I believe that this product targets parents or perhaps even teachers as well to help prevent the spread of germs in the student’s daily environment. While the product is proven to prevent the spread of bacteria, it helps students maintain physical wellness in the classroom because they are performing daily health precautions.
The development of this product says that a lot of schools were having issues with the common cold and sore throat. The Lambert Pharmaceutical Company officially bought the rights of the Listerine formula from Litster Lawrence in the year 1881, followed by putting it on the market. When the company got a hold of this product, they wanted to test it out to ensure the fact that it would be safe for oral use. Over time, it gained its popular reputation for killing off germs in side the mouth.
While the company proved the product to be effective, it struck dentist’s attention as well. Therefore, the product is still used by dentist’s today. The advertisement tries to sell the product with the statement at the top which expresses a crowded classroom’s usceptibility to germs. This statement is a warning to make people like parents and or teachers feel worried at first because it has something to do with their children or students. The statement acts as a way to capture the audience’s attention in order to give them a reason to read the rest of the ad.
Another way to look at the words alone is, the more crowded the space the child is in, the more they are vulnerable to students who may carry unwanted germs. Therefore, germs from a student’s peer can be spread from direct contact or even in any spot in the room since they come into close contact with each other nd the room itself every day. As a day care worker, I always see children as walking germs themselves. This ad shows how taking the precaution of gargling Listerine helps reduce germ activity in the classroom.
The picture produces a brief snapshot of a classroom that says a lot about how easily and quickly germs can be spread in this type of environment. The first thing that strikes my attention is the boy standing up who is either on the verge of sneezing or coughing with a bunch of tissues in his hands. Although he has tissues in his hands to cover his germs from spreading onto anyone else, it looks more like he is about o spread these unwanted germs throughout the room defeating the whole purpose of the tissues.
The boy also has his attention drawn to him by the teacher and another student because of his apparent illness. While the teacher walks to another student to help, she turns around to look at the boy with a disgusted look on her face while the student sitting next to him looks at him in the same manner. I found this kind of comical and scary at the same time because you have the teacher and the girl’s faces that very well show their feelings towards the boy’s potential germ spreading while it relays the message for parents to buy the product.
While this occurrence is happening, there are two other students who are coughing into their hands. Although the students believe they are preventing their germs from spreading, they’re really not. Therefore, their hands are now open game to spreading their germs on to whoever, whether it be onto another peer or onto an object in the room for someone else to touch and grab a hold of. As a whole, I saw this picture as very crowded and almost suffocating because you get a view of the whole classroom, confined into a very small area that’s becoming infested with germs.
Because of the students coughing and sneezing, it should make the parent econd guess the environment they’re sending their children to every day. At this point, if the statement at the top does not convince the parent to buy the Listerine product, the picture should because it is very obvious that there are many children in this example classroom who are carrying potential germs to school. Furthermore, the box below the photo shows a set of statistics that claim how effective the Listerine product is.
These high percentages add to the company’s conclusion that gargling Listerine does help reduce colds and sore throats. These facts show that the company is willing to provide concrete evidence in rder to get more people to understand that if they buy the product, it will help reduce their child’s chances of sickness. The company also states how many people they tested the product on and the amount of time spent experimenting with the product in order to prove its effectiveness.
This adds to the company’s credibility because it shows that they did not just make the product and put it on the market, but they have taken years to test and prove its positive outcomes with a large group of people. Along with the statistics, the company provides a brief summary with reasons why Listerine can benefit their child. First, it says that gargling Listerine will help get rid of millions of germs, followed by saying that no matter the capacity of the classroom, children are exposed to many bacteria.
The ad is trying to say that even though a child could be in an uncrowded classroom, they are still exposed to bacteria during the cold season. Therefore, the company believes that it is necessary to take caution by having a child gargle Listerine before and after school because the germs are invisible. The idea of gargling the product day to day implies how easy it could be for parents to get their children to kill off germs since they sually put up fights when taking medicine.
If I was a parent, the one thing that I would feel a little skeptical about after viewing this ad would be the ingredients of the product. Although the ingredients are not clearly stated anywhere on the ad, a little picture of the product shows words written underneath the product’s name. After the food, drug, and cosmetic act came into play, the ingredients should be clearly stated due to United States enforcement of this law in 1938. Therefore, if I were a parent, I would have to gain more knowledge by going to the store and examining what the Listerine product contains before llowing my child to gargle it.
In conclusion, this Listerine advertisement uses a number of elements to convince its audience that it is an effective germ killing product. While the company tries to scare the audience due to the invisible infestation of germs, they provide the audience with Listerine being the answer to their problem. Although the ad targets parents to buy this product for their children, it also mentions that the whole family can benefit off of it too. After the statistics show positive outcomes of this product, it should leave the viewer convinced that the daily use of Listerine was a safe way to prevent germ activity.
