The Child as a signifier of
Purity and Innocence.
Children as signifiers are used to promote the product with some quality that supposedly belongs to children. One of the more frequent of these uses is that of the child as a signifier of purity and/or innocence. In this use of the child, innocence is drawn on as a link to purity. The child is used to sell anything that could possibly want to claim purity. This attempt to claim purity is seen especially often in the use of the child to sell cleaning products, such as soap or shampoo.These draw/create the concept that pure is better--for the product, and for you. (What's this whole big deal with purity anyway? Nothing can every be totally pure--scientific fact. So why this bourgeois concern for total purity and cleanliness? It is enhanced/created through the ideology of advertising.)
(The child as a signifier of innocence seems to have a gender gap--girls are more likely to be used. What impression does this then give of boys? Boys become anti-innocence. Advertising thus reinforces/creates ideological stereotypes. )
Breck Shampoo-----Back to Basics Shampoo-----Ivory Soap