Vintage Ads: Rhetorical Analysis

Vintage ads are both similar and different from the ads of our era. They relied on the same sorts of appeals while using a different medium of expression. For example, while most image-based ads of our era use the medium of the Internet, in the vintage era, the illustrated print ad reigned supreme, mainly featuring in magazines and newspapers. 

This era also tended to have ads with more literary rhetorical devices. In this article, we examine three vintage ads and see how they used rhetoric to achieve their effects. We also chose ads that appealed to women to see how they adapted their message and strategy to speak to this target audience. 

1. 1959 Maybelline Mascara Ad 

The first ad we will look at is this 1959 Maybelline ad for mascara. Maybelline, both today and in the past, relied heavily on literary devices such as alliteration — that is, the repetition of close consonant sounds at the beginning of words. There are several examples of the literary device being used here.

Let’s first look at the full text of the ad: 

The text in the image is as follows: "Easiest way ever to lovely lashes! Never has lash-loveliness been so easy, so pleasant, so perfect! New SPIRAL BRUSH supplies exactly the right amount of MAGIC mascara-waterproofs, separates, darkens and curls each lash individually as only the new SPIRAL BRUSH can do. Takes just seconds. No more stuck-together lashes. No more smears, blobs spots! Never any sting of smart .. . . for new MAGIC mascara is so smooth, so safe, so pure . . ., never stiff or brittle. Makes you look as if you were born with long, luxuriant lashes! Four beauty-giving shades: Velvet, Black, Sable Brown, Midnight Blue, Jade Green. Maybelline . . . devoted exclusively to the art of eye beauty!"

For example, "lovely lashes," where the "l" sound is repeated twice. There's also:

—lash-loveliness (repetition of the "l" sounds)

—so pleasant, so perfect (repetition of the "p" sound )

—Magic mascara (repetition of the "m" sound)

—lashes look their longest and loveliest always (repetition of the "l" sound)

Besides this, there's also just consonance, that is, the repetition of consonant sounds for sonorous effect. This is done in the carefully crafted first sentence in the body of the ad: 

Easiest way ever to lovely lashes!

This line uses assonance (repetition of close vowel sounds) to create a euphonic effect. The repetition of the short and long vowel "e" sounds (especially short "e") in this first sentence, as well as the repetition of the "l" and "v" sounds, makes the ad sound nice or pleasing to the ear. The overall effect is playful and pleasant, and even girly and cute. Maybelline to this day has preserved in the copy of its ad campaigns.

In addition to this, they also make use of simple repetition, especially anaphora. This can be seen in lines like “so easy, so pleasant, so perfect!” Anaphora is also used in combination with asyndeton (or the exclusion of conjunctions). The effect is to create a breathless effect in praising all the wonderful attributes of Maybelline. 

2. 1948 Rinso vintage ad 

The next vintage ad we will look at is this 1948 print ad by Rinso — a subsidiary of Unilever. It relies heavily on alliteration and consonance, as well as “playful irony” to sell laundry soap. Let’s take a deeper look at how it achieves this. 

“Washes White Clothes Whiter” is alliteration (or repetition of consonant sounds in the beginning of consecutive words), with the letter “w” being constantly repeated. On the right side of the ad, they also use alliteration, but not nearly as much: 

Washable Colors Look Brighter Than Brand New

This is more consonance than alliteration, where consonant sounds are repeated throughout the sentence, but not necessarily placed at the beginning of words. The consonant in question is the “b” sound in “washable”, “Brighter”, and “Brand”. 

Alliteration and consonance are not simply used to make the ad sound pretty. Instead, they are employed to emphasize the benefits of the soap. It makes your whites whiter and your colored clothes as bright as brand new. So the words being emphasized are white and bright, which is exactly what people expect from a laundry soap when using it. 

The ad also uses anaphora — that is, repetition at the beginning of consecutive sentences or phrases. This can be seen in the double repetition of the phrase “No other soap . . .” Note, this is not just to make the ad sound pretty. The anaphora here emphasizes the USP: namely, that the soap contains a special chemical called solium that makes their claims credible.

However, the most notable and even daring device used in the ad is “playful irony.” It’s as if the ad is slightly mocking the women’s rights movement of that era. It shows women protesting, not for equal rights, or civil rights, or voting rights. But to use a laundry soap, perform domestic chores. 

The women are dressed modernly, fashionably, and in work clothes, as we expect modern progressive women to be dressed. But they are advocating for washing clothes. This type of irony walks the thin line between being disrespectful and being playful and funny quite well in my opinion. It does a good job of making use of notoriety.

3. Lucky Strike vintage ads 

It’s very hard for us today to equate the cigarette with style and romance. But this is exactly the appeal being used by Lucky Strike in this print ad. The ad, like many other cigarette ads of the era, uses a colorful and luxurious illustration.

These ads were designed to appeal to women, as the tobacco industry was worried about the social mores that women who smoked were unattractive to men.  The ad, and others like it, tried to change this by giving cigarettes sex appeal and portraying them as something that enhanced women’s sexual attraction. 

In doing so,  it relies on subtle literary devices, such as innuendo or double entendre, although the image is quite obvious. The text also makes use of a crucial copywriting principle known as “the Simple 4S Formula."  That means it keeps things short and easy to read. 

Let’s take a closer look at the copy written here. "Just one more" is a pun or innuendo that mixes up the idea of having one more cigarette with one more kiss or one more round. "It's toasted" refers to the idea of tobacco being dried through artificial heat sources as opposed to being dried in the sun. Allegedly, this process made the tobacco taste more mild and "healthier."

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, November 28). Vintage Ads: Rhetorical Analysis. 

EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/vintage-ads-rhetorical-analysis