“Tough but True Laundry Tactics” is a plain style
article that remains transparent despite its attempts to hide its motives. The
author of this article seems to know a lot about doing laundry in other
countries, use many concrete examples of how people in other countries or
situations do (or do not) clean their clothes. Before reading the article, I
thought it was about how to remove certain types of stains or how to combine
loads. The article actually informs the readers about how people in other
countries/circumstances do (or don’t do) laundry and then proceeds to advertise
their product. The
blog style of the article seems to establish authority on the topic of laundry
and spike interest in Tide products as a blog style advertisement.
The article establishes authority on the
topic in several ways. With a high readability score and an average grade level
of 9, this piece is easy to read even though it delivers some interesting
information on laundry practices in other countries. Evident in this piece is
the lower levels of formality. The article is written in 2nd person,
and the author uses several contractions. Talking about how astronauts and
laundry, the author says, “Hopefully, they don’t make their moms do the
washing!” (Tide.com). There is a cliché right away in the first paragraph when
the author writes, “If you’re among the fortunate few who can simply toss a
load into a washer, count yourself lucky” (Tide.com). The use of parallelism as
a rhetorical device is found in the introduction as an attention grabber- “How
do astronauts keep their clothing clean in space? Where do hikers on the
Appalachian Trail wash their sweaty gear? How about sailors? ” (Tide.com). Parallelism
is used in the article to help strengthen the connection the author makes
between astronauts and college freshmen when she says, “They take the same
approach as many college freshmen: They wear their clothing as long as they can
bear it, then pack up their dirty laundry and bring it home with them”
(Tide.com). These elements combine to make the article engaging and hold the
reader’s interest to the end where it offers a shameless plug for the use of
Tide products.
As an informational article about
laundry, the writer spikes interest in Tide products by presenting the website
as a blog and presenting interesting information about laundry in other
countries. The page where the article is published looks like it is a blog but
when you look at the URL, you notice it is actual a Tide webpage. They want
people to purchase their product, buy Tide to Go Stain Erasers or Tide Travel
Sink Packets-the product names are hyperlinks to a Tide website (one that no
longer looks like a blog) where you can purchase the tide to go erasers. Tide
is sneaky about the fact that the page is controlled by their company. The site
itself is titled Fabric Care Solutions.
Other than the URL, there are no hints until the very bottom of the page where
their logo is displayed.
The article is aimed at people accustom
to doing their laundry in a washing machine who will be traveling to other
countries such as Africa and India as are mentioned in the article. It is also
aimed at people who are planning a backpacking excursion in another country or
planning on staying in hostels rather than at expensive hotels. The article
offers an alternative to doing laundry the traditionally American way when it
isn’t possible by using Tide products because the end goal is for the reader to
purchase Tide products. The concluding statement of the article reads “if
you’ll be traveling to a locale where you suspect that washing machines are in
short supply, do yourself a favor: Pack Tide® to Go Stain Erasers. That way you
can tackle any noticeable spills and smudges—and mask the fact that you’re
wearing not-so-fresh clothes.”
Some may say that Tide is not intending
people to find this site and by interested in purchasing Tide products just
from reading it. This cannot be true, however, as the title itself is
misleading. “Tough but True Laundry Tactics” can be assumed to be an article
about different ways to handle a tough clothing job such as one with stains.
The article is actually about how people in other countries do their laundry. The
article also lures in the unsuspecting person looking for tricks to doing
laundry with the ambiguous title. Tide could claim that the article was
formatted as a blog to reach a wider audience and to simply educate people on
how others in other countries do laundry, with the end goal being education and
a side bonus if someone happened to be traveling in the near future, followed
the hyperlink, and bought their product. This could be true except from a
business perspective, Tide is a company out to make money, not to help people
out of the goodness of their hearts and hiring someone to manage and write
articles for a blog website under their name costs money. Unless the project
had potential to make Tide a lot of money, they would not waste their resources
on it.
Despite the hidden aspect of Tide
running the site, the use of plain language helps the goal of the article become
transparent by the end of the article. The article initially established
credibility by acting like a blog written by a regular person without an agenda
just looking to share some easy tips on laundry and promoting Tide. After
discovering that the site was run by Tide and the reader realizes the article
is a persuasive advertisement disguised as a blog, the reader may feel tricked
and not want to buy Tide products. On the other hand, the reader may not care
that a blog format was used because these days everyone has and reads blogs. Despite being written in plain
language, the article was still able to hide the motive inside itself. This
suggests that similar texts, though believed to be plain and direct, still can
have hidden meanings and hidden agendas. It may seem that the goal is for the
reader to think they want to purchase these Tide products and for them to think
they came about that conclusion on their own, uninfluenced by an advertisement
but rather guided by the blog article into making their own decisions. This
brings up a question about the advertising methods being implemented today. How
effective are blog style articles such as these? Are they effective because
they lead the consumer to their own conclusion? The idea is similar to the old
adage “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”.
~B.N.
Works Cited
“Tough but True Laundry Tactics”. Tide. Proctor&Gamble, 2013. Web. 16 October
2013. <http://www.tide.com/en-US/fabriccaresolutions/article/Tough-but-True-Laundry-Tactics.jspx>
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